
Class 

Book 



COPYRIGKr DEPOSIT 



/.<^ 



'"^^^AM^lr*^ 




A JOURNEY 



Throu2;h Wonderland; 



/ 



The Pacific Northwest and Alaska, 



A DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED BY THE 
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD. 



ELIA W. PEATTIE. 




Copyrighted, 1890, 

By CHAS. S. fee. General Passenger and Ticket Agent, 

Northern Pacific Railroad, St. Paul. 







'S y Publishers. f ~v 







f<^^ «<C«:<cac - 



ILLUSTK..aTIO.NS, 



Mount Tacoma - 

Detroit Lake and Hotel Minnesota, Detroit, Minn. 
Dining Car Interior on the Wonderland Route 
Sleeping Car Interior on the Wonderland Route 
The Bismarck Bridge— Ice Bridge, iS8o; Steel Bridge, i8go 
Montana Horse Ranch --•-•■■■ 
Yellowstone River and Crazy Mountains - - - " 

Geysers and Falls in the Yellowstone National Park 
Pharaoh— Hoodoo Country— Yellowstone Bark 
•Conclave of the Koodoos- Hoodoo Country— Yellowstone Bark 
Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, Yellowstone National Bark 
Hotel Broadwater, Helena, on N. B. R. R. - 
■Cceur d'Alene Lake and Steamer " Cteur d'Alene " 
"The Poorman "—Coeur d'Alene Mining District, Burke, Idaho 
Spokane River and Falls ..---- 

Farm and Hop Yard, North Yakima, Wash. 
Peach Orchard, North Yakima, Wash. - - ■ " ' 

Lake Kichelos, near Summit of Cascade Range 

Puget Sound Forests 

" The Tacoma " ..---•-■' 

Devil's Thumb, Alaska 

Alaska — Gateway to the Glaciers - ■ • - " " 

Alaska — Steamer in Ice Field --■•-" 



PAGE 

Frontispiece. 
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16 
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24 

28 
32 
36 
40 

44 
48 

52 
56 
60 
64 
63 



7G 
80 
84 
90 





(6) 



A Journey Through Wonderland. 



I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, 

and cry, *' 'Tis all barren 1 " 

— Laurence Sterne. 




T was the merest chance that took me westward. I had never 
previously been 500 miles from New York — except, of course, 
to Europe. Everyone goes to Europe. The chance that made 
me journey westward was a business one; but other than business 
reasons made me glad to go. 
" If you ever get an ache of the heart," said a young Frenchman whom I 
once met, " take a long journey. Visit the Indian Ocean, for instance. There, 
wrapped in a pajama, one lies on deck at night, watching the swaying of the 
masthead and the twinkling of the stars — the languorous stars of those latitudes. 
Time, space, and peace are all there is left of life, and the bitterness and weari- 
ness melt away from one, and seem to become a part of the mists in the blue 
distance. Take my word for it, there is nothing like a voyage on some solitary 
sea to cure the heartache." 

Thus, when it came about that business took me to Duluth, to Winnipeg, 
and St. Paul, I concluded to go farther — across the plains, the mountains, and 
to Alaska. I substituted Alaska for the Indian seas. Alaska, I confess, seemed 
a very long way off, for I had not, at that time, learned that distance is no actual 
quantity, but is determined only by the convenience or inconvenience that 
attends a journey. When I left my native city, however, the words " Duluth " 
and "Winnipeg" were without significance to me, and even St. Paul meant 
little enough. 

The first two days are indistinct in my mind. There are circumstances 
under which a man can not enjoy even a Niagara. I could not hear its roar for 
the cooing of newly-married lovers, and considering a recent experience of mine, 
I naturally felt irritated. A few long days on the lakes followed, and I got a 
certain comfort out of them. It is true that I did not lie wrapped in my pajama 
while fanned by tropical and perfumed breezes. There were no tropical 
breezes, for one thing, and I had no pajama. As the oxygen got into my lungs, 
the morbidity went out of my soul, and I should have been almost happy but for 
a young lumberman on board. He was a good-natured young man — indeed, 
he was too good-natured, for he never looked at me without smiling. There 

(V) 



8 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

was nothing ridiculous about me, of that I was sure. I understood the subject 
of clothes if any man in New York did, and it was hard for me to find out why 
a man in a flannel shirt, and a hat at least three years in arrears of the fashion, 
should laugh at me. 

" I should like to see you," he used to remark, "after you have caught the 
fever." 



DINING CAR INTERIOR ON THE WONDERLAND ROUTE. 

"What fever?" I anxiously inquired. 

"Why, the western fever," he replied. "You will get it, or my name is 
Dennis." 

The phraseology of this young lumberman was not always choice. I was 
not sorry when I learned that we were approaching Duluth, where I was likely 
to escape him. 



A JOURNEY THROLUJH WONDERLAND. 9 

" Duluth," I said to myself, " is no doubt a chilly little harbor with a few 
lumber mills' in the background, and fish-nets straggling on the beach." I had 
seen a great many dull hamlets of that sort, and I was not interested. To be 
sure, the young lumberman was buzzing facts in my ear with the pertinacity of a 
statistical mosquito, but they meant nothing to me. 

"It is the largest grain-shipping port in the world," he informed me. " It 
has a population of 45,000, sir, and its grain elevators have an aggregate 
capacity of 12,000,000 bushels." 

Then he spread his legs apart, and waited for me to be overcome with these 
facts; but the truth is, I have never been much impressed with figures. But 
when I saw Duluth rising ledge above ledge, I felt a sudden tbrill of admiration. 
Southeast of this lay innumerable saw-mills, and their metallic humming came 

over the water. 

"That," said my informant, "is West Superior and Superior City. It is 
no mean town taken together, even when compared with Duluth. Their 
population is a little less than half that of Duluth, but they are good towns, 
sir— good towns. Look at the coal docks, if you please, and you will not be 
surprised to hear that their coal receipts are over a million tons a year. They 
communicate with Duluth by the Northern Pacific bridge, you know. But 
Duluth is the town, sir ! Founded on a rock, with seven railroads, ten banks; 
with coal, wheat, lumber, steel, railway cars to ship out—" 

" My friend," I broke in wearily, "I know all that. I know that in 1870 
there was nothing here but a sand-bank. Now I am quite willing to believe 
that it is the most civilized city on earth. I know also that you western gentle- 
men are accomplished orators." 

My lumberman turned to me suddenly, and button-holed me. 

" Look here," said he, " if you knew what you were talking about, I should 
get mad. But I think the tune is coming when you will feel dift'erent. If the 
time comes when you have occasion to watch a town grow as I have this, 
you will know what it is to feel the same sort of pride. I have seen 
Duluth when she was nothing but sand and rock. Look at her now, sir ! 
Beautiful homes stand on those terraces of trap ; 12,500 miles of railroad are 
directly tributary to her; her taxable property is in the neighborhood of 
$30,000,000. Of course I am proud of Duluth— as proud as I would be of one 
of my own children. Never before in the history of the world has it been the 
privilege of men to watch the growth of citi'es as they can in the United States in 
the nin^eteenth century. And it seems to me, sir, to be one of the great privi- 
leges. You may not appreciate it, but I do." 

What could I do but give a hearty hand-shake to the enthusiastic lumber- 
man? In the two days I remained in the cities at the head of Lake Superior, 
to which I had been introduced with so memorable a eulogy, I experienced 
none of the lack of comfort and convenience that I had anticipated— indeed, 
I found conveniences that we in the East had not thought it worth while to 



10 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

provide ourselves with. It was in this town that I met a young man whom I 
was destined to see more than once in my journey. He was dressed from head 
to foot in corduroy, and was laden with a most remarkable quantity of fishing- 
tackle and gun-cases. I was on my way to St. Paul by way of Ashland, thinking 
it profitable to take that somewhat circuitous route for the sake of seeing that 
popular resort, when the corduroy-clad individual I speak of sat down opposite me, 
and loaded three seats with his paraphernalia. I saw that he was fixing a steady 
gaze on me, but supposing this to be a part of the rudeness I naturally expected to 
encounter in the West, I paid no attention to it, until at last he broke out with: 

" My dear sir, I am sure from your physiognomy that you are a sportsman." 

"Then my features belie me," I returned, curtly, "for I have neither the 
skill to bring down game nor the patience to hold a line." 

" But it is impossible to deceive me," he protested. " I know a sportsman 
when I see one. Your skill may not be developed, and your passion for sport 
may be latent, but it exists, sir ! It exists ! And before we part, I hope to 
prove it to you." 

"You are out, then, on a sporting expedition ?" I inquired. 

" I may sa)-," he returned, crossing his corduroy legs, " that I never go on 
any other sort of an expedition, and I flatter myself that I have visited many 
of the most famous resorts of the sportsman in the known world; and I must 
say I have never found anything finer in the way of trout streams than up 
here on the north shore of Lake Superior. Gooseberry River, sir, is one of the 
most extraordinary streams ! I caught one trout there that weighed — " 

"Pardon me," I interrupted, " but what is your name ? " 

I gave him my card, bearing a name that I flattered myself was not without 
patriotic associations — Scott Key. His card, promptly tendered, showed in fine 
script the honest name of John Parke. 

"When your latent capabilities in the way of sporting are developed," con- 
tinued this amiable gentleman, " you must go to Deerwood. Deerwood is ninety- 
seven miles west of Duluth. You can get a good hotel over your head at night, and 
in the day you may wander through one of the most beautiful woods it was 
ever the privilege of man to set eyes on, and shoot anything worth the shooting, 
except a Bengal tiger. The deer are superb — and, what is better, they are 
frequent, so to speak. As for fishing, you can have anything you want. There 
is pike, sir, and black bass; there is muskallonge, whitefish, pickerel, croppies, 
sunfish, rock bass, bullheads — " 

" I am afraid your eloquence is wasted on me," I protested, " for I do not 
know one sort of fish from another." 

" Well ! " pityingly exclaimed Mr. Parke, " I never knew a man who had been 
so wrested from his natural calling as you, sir. Whenever I look at you, I 
associate you with a troUing-spoon or a split bamboo rod and a brown hackle. 
You should go up to the Brule — only 35 miles from Duluth, on the Ashland 
line of the Northern Pacific — and throw a fly at some of the gamy trout there." 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 



11 



It is unnecessary to repeat more of what this young man said. I seemed 
to be destined to meet with enthusiasts. 

I spent a day in Ashland, a most picturesque little town, the extreme eastern 
terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, lying on the silver Bay of Chequame- 
gon, with the Apostle Islands visible. But although Ashland is a famous 
summer resort, and has a large hotel bearing the name of the bay, and especially 
adapted to midsummer tourists, its interest is not simply a romantic one. It is 
the largest shipping port of iron ore in the United States, and has steel manu- 
factures, among its many other industries, where the ore from the Gogebic range 
is worked. The Wisconsin Central makes it its tei minus. But I cared less for 
the material advantages than for those odorous forests of pine, those clear 
streams, and the bay, bright in the sunshine of the late summer. 

I took the train to St. Paul, and arriving in that city busied myself with my 
duties. A man raised in a great metropolis could feel but little interest in so 
young and experimental a city as that I found myself in. At least this was what 
I told myself. But I had not been a day in the place before I began to feel some- 
thing peculiar in the atmosphere. I am referring, so to speak, to the mental 
atmosphere. The men, for example, seemed to have a strange energy. They 
walked as if they had something particular to do, and but a very little time to 
do it in. I began to walk quicker myself, and to look about me with some degree 
of interest. The buildings, I soon saw, were of a newer and more artistic 
architecture than that usually seen in American cities. 

St. Paul rises in proud terraces from the Mississippi, the first two devoted to 
business houses, the second two to the homes of the city A fringe of gentle 
groves crowns the topmost heights, which bend to the sweep of the river, and 
here are those houses which I hear have made St. Paul famous in the West as a 
desirable residence city. I have a theory— not very sound, perhaps, from^ a 
commercial stand-point— that the true success of a city is gauged largely by its 
humane institutions, rather than by its number of bank buildings; though, 
indeed, the idea is not so far wrong, for it is only the prosperous city that will 
have hospitals and asylums, since they are only provided for after the jails, the 
court-houses, and the merchant houses are well established. I found three 
hospitals, two orphan asylums, and several other charitable establishments. ^ In 
St. Paul the neW county court-house has had a million dollars expended on it— 
a statement which I did not find it difficult to believe. There are eighteen 
public school-houses, at which 15,000 children are being educated. AH these 
facts I did not learn at once, nor because I made any especial effort to discover 
them, but they were thrust upon me by patriotic citizens, and I transcribe them 
for the benefit of others. Six trunk lines of railroads, from the East, run into 
this city and through Minneapolis. Indeed, so closely are these two cities 
wedded, that, in the mind of the stranger, at least, it is difficult to separate one 

from the other. 

" I have always been distressed at the rivalry that some persons have forced 



12 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 



into existence between St. Paul and Minneapolis," said a well-known judge, 
whose office was in one city, and his home in the other. " The time is not far 
distant when these two cities will be united by a continuous line of suburbs, as 
they now are by commercial interest. The people of these cities are similar 
and congenial, and I am opposed to anything that has a tendency to divide 
them, or pit one against the other." 




SLEEPING CAR INTERIOR OiM THE WONDERLAND ROUTE. 



It was to this amiable old gentleman that I owed much of the pleasure 
of my stay in these twin cities. He took me to see the wonderful flouring 
mills of Minneapolis, where I got more flour-dust on my clothes than I 
could have wished, and where I made little annotations in my memoranda-book, 
concerning the facts imparted to me by my venerable guide. Ke told me that 
St. Paul had 200,000 inhabitants,, and Minneapolis 200,001 ; that Minneapolis 
was the largest flour market in the world, her mills having a daily aggregate 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 13 

capacity of 37,450 barrels ; he said tiiat St. Paul had seven National banks and 
nine State banks, with an aggregate capital of $7,624,000 ; and that the manu- 
factured products of Minneapolis for the present year would be over $84,000,000. 
We had some pleasant rides together, the pleasant old pioneer and I. We 
visited Fort Snelling, and looked down from its heights at the capricious river 
which has made the wealth of Minneapolis. We drove to Minnehaha Falls, 
quoted from the dead familiar poet, to appease his shade, drank beer within 
sound of the merry little fraud which has stolen the name of the fall that Long- 
fellow designated, and meanwhile the Judge talked to me of his son and 
daughter who had gone to Tacoma. 

" They are the best children in the world," my friend declared, " and you 
shall carry letters to them. They have gone to make their fortunes in the city 
of destiny. I never would raise my children to use the money I had given my 
strength in making. It is the best way in the world to ruin a young man or 
woman. I am willing to give them a start, but I want them to try their own 
strength. If .you do an arm up in bandages, you can not expect to be able to 
use it with any execution. It is just the same with young people. I have sent 
my boy out West, to the best town I could learn of, and his sister has gone along 
to keep him from being homesick, and to make a home for him. I want you to 
go up to the house and see them." 

From what I have insinuated concerning my state of mind, it can be readily 
guessed that I was not particularly desirous of an introduction to any lady. I 
had come West partly to escape the sex, and was som.ewhat annoyed at finding 
that they existed even in that part of the world which I had always thought of 
as essentially a man's country. So I replied : 

" I should be very glad to call at the office and see your son. Judge Curtis, 
but I am not much of a society man. I am sure I should not be justified in 
intruding upon your daughter." 

The old gentleman was not without sensitiveness. 

"Just as you please," he returned stiffly. " I will give you a note to my 
son." 

I took the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul train to Lake Minnetonka, one 
day, and rested at the Hotel St. Louis, from the fatigues consequent upon sight- 
seeing. Here, amid the many islands, the gentle surprises and the wooded 
banks of Minnetonka, I could reflect at ease upon these daring and dashing 
young cities, which had the temerity to outdo many older and more renowned 
cities in fields which those older cities had esteemed especially their own. I 
took out my note-book and contemjilated it in quiet, with no one to witness 
my amazement. 

Here was mention of one mill that has power to grind 25,000 bushels of 
wheat every twenty-four hours! Its mighty belts run over its shafts at the rate 
of 2,664 feet a minute! I laid back on my oars, and dizzily drew in my mind's 
eye this tremendous flying and whirling, this shifting and grinding ! All the 



14 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

power of those twin cities came suddenly to me; I was forced to a realization 
of their young greatness, their probable future, and I was glad to get back 
to them, and to walk on their streets at night, mingling with the gay and 
active crowd that walks under the bright electric illuminations. I dropped into 
a couple of the attractive theatres, by way of getting rid of solitude, and the 
next day took a hasty journey from St. Paul to White Bear Lake, an exclusive 
little resort, where many of the finest suburban residences stand on the shores 
of a modest and translucent lake. 

The next day I resumed my westward journey, intending to leave the main 
road at Winnipeg Junction, 250 miles or more from St. Paul, and then journey 
north over the Duluth & Manitoba Branch of the Northern Pacific. For 125 
miles the road follows the great river, through fields of corn and wheat. Before 
these are reached, however, the suburban stretch lying between St. Paul and 
Minneapolis is passed. The imposing fair buildings are to be seen here, a 
university building, which an agreeable conductor informed me was the Ham- 
line University, and the new shops of the Northern Pacific. 

1 have all my life been afraid of being bored. I was mortally fearful that 
now the time of distress was at hand, and that after the entertainment of a cigar 
had been exhausted, I should have no resources left; for I may as well own 
at once that I am not one of those fortunate — or fabled — mortals, whose mind 
to them a kingj^om is. 

But in a short time we neared Anoka. Now, Anoka is a nice little town of 
5,000 inhabitants, engaged in the wholesome occupations of sawing trees into 
lumber and turning wheat into flour. She is the seat of the county whose 
namesake she is ; but she interested me on none of these accounts particularly. 
What entertained my fancy was the logging stream, bearmg the spiritous name 
of the Rum River, at the mouth of which she stands. The idea of plenty con- 
veyed in the rushing of that merry little stream, and the recollection of the vast 
concourse of plunging logs that floated down it — all of which I saw in imagina- 
tion — with the loggers in the midst, singing and swearing, entertained me while 
I passed Big Lake and Clear Lake, pretty prairie sheets of water, and reached 
the shady village of St. Cloud, which, I was informed, had the advantage of 
Anoka in point of population by 2,000. Granite and jasper are quarried at no 
great distance from this town. 

I was taking careless note of this village, built on its pleasant plateau, when 
my attention was attracted by the frantic efforts of a lady to open a window. 
It is one of the banes of my life that women insist on trying to open windows. 
Either they should go into training and accumulate sufficient strength to success- 
fully accomplish their purpose, or else they should cure themselves of the habit. 
I have invariably had the misfortune to open windows for jaundiced and dyspeptic 
ladies, who returned me scant thanks, and did nothing but get cinders in their 
eyes after the window v/as opened. However, I did not ring for the porter as 
I might have done, but, inspired with the spirit of true sacrifice, opened the 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 15 

window for the exhausted lady, whom, to my very great surprise, I discovered 
to be neither jaundiced nor dyspeptic. On the contrary, she was a rosy and 
well-dressed young creature, with a degree of self-sufficiency in her manner, 
and a remarkably candid pair of eyes in her head. I addressed a few ambigu- 
ous remarks to her. She smiled at me in a way that seemed to say she under- 
stood my embarrassment, and was sorry for me, and frankly asked me to sit 
down. While this invitation gratified me, it also shocked me, for in the East 
young ladies do not ask strange young men to sit down and talk with them, on 
the score of an acquaintance extending over the period of ten seconds. I had 
read " Daisy Miller," and I must say that, though I in no v/ay approved of that 
young woman, I was not averse to meeting one of her sort — which I imme- 
diately concluded my new friend to be. 

"The elms and maples of St. Cloud are very beautiful," remarked Miss 
Dinsmore — for this, I learned, was her name. I said they were. 

" Never so beautiful here, though," she went on, as if continuing her 
remark without interruption from me, " as in the East." 

" Then you are from the East ?" I inquired. 

" Everyone out here is from the East," sententiously returned Miss Dinsmore, 
" except a few, whose parents are from the East." 

" Then that is why manners are so much more cultivated than I expected 
to find them," I injudiciously remarked. The candid eyes opened to a some- 
what embarrassing degree. 

" I guess you haven't been out here very long," was all she said, but it had 
the effect of an accusation, and I felt like blushing. I confessed that I had not. 

" Then you are not yet a good American," she said. " We out West here 
are proud of, and devoted to, the whole of the United States, but you of the 
East are only devoted to your own little particular place. You must really stay 
out here, and get your ideas enlarged." 

A waiter, with unrivaled elocutionary powers, announced at this point that 
supper was ready in the dining-car, and that this was the last statement of that 
fact. Miss Dinsmore started with a promptitude that spoke well for her 
appetite, and I followed. Now, 1 am fastidious about i-ny meals. Therefore, I 
did not look forward with pleasure to the idea of eating on board the train; but 
whether it was the fact that Miss Dinsmore sugared my tea, and ordered my 
supper, or that the linen was spotless, and the dishes so well prepared and 
served, I do not know, but it is certain that I ate far more than usual. In 
deciding just where the credit is due in this matter, my position is a delicate 
one; for, while I do not wish to hold back any of the praise I feel to be the 
right of the cuisine of the Northern Pacific, I can not well, even by insinuation, 
detract from the share that the lady had in my satisfaction. 

While I ate my toast, and defended myself against the intellectual onslaughts 
of Miss Dinsmore, I looked out on the town of Sauk Rapids, near which lay 
beds of granite, which my vis-a-vis assured me, with triumph in her tone, was the 




(!«) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 17 

equal of any of the boasted granite of New England. When we reached Little 
Falls, Miss Dinsmore consented to leave the car for a few minutes to pace the 
platform. I was just casting about for some theme of conversation likely to 
interest this young woman, when I beheld my corduroy friend— otherwise John 
Parke, huntsman and angler — bearing down upon us, laden, as usual, to the 
very bulwarks with traps. He saw me at once, and unburdening himself on the 
unfortunate conductors and porters, approached me with a cordiality that was 
only tempered into moderation by the fact that I had a lady with me. He 
had barely acknowledged the introduction, when he broke into one of his usual 
rhapsodies. 

"You've missed the chance of your life," he cried. "I never saw better 
shooting than there is out here, west of the Mississippi. I've been out here to 
Rice Lake, and up to my knees in cat-tails and rushes and wild rice, and I've 
bagged some of the best ducks you ever ate." 

" But," interposed Miss Dinsmore, with a certain pathetic intonation, " we 
have not eaten them." 

" Rest easy," said the huntsman, with a gallant salute; " you shall have some 
of them, for I have brought some aboard, and they are to be cooked for me. I 
had partridge and grouse, but I gave them away; and I sighted a deer, but, unfort- 
unately, he sighted me at the same time, and our acquaintance ended then and 
there. I say, Key, if you ever have occasion to put up at the Falls, be sure and go to 
the 'Antlers.' Everyone who comes out this way gunning stops there, and it is 
possible to have a jolly time." After this, I seemed to be shut out of the conver- 
sation for a time, for the unconscionable hunter walked away with Miss Dins- 
more, showing off his handsome legs, in their dashing top-boots and skin-tight 
trousers, in a way naturally discouraging to a man in commonplace trousers, the 
ugliness of which were heightened by being a little bagged at the knees. As I 
could not be amused, I determined to acquire knowledge, and learned that Little 
Falls possessed one of the best water-powers in the United States, constructed 
in 1888, and costing $250,000. This is employed for flouring-mills and factories, 
and by its aid the town of Little Falls aspires to be a manufacturmg center in 
the not far distant future. I also learned that the Little Falls & Dakota 
Division of the Northern Pacific runs south from this point. This terminates at 
Morris, eighty-eight miles from Little Falls, and runs through a country dis- 
tinguished for its agricultural resources, and especially for its remarkable chain 
of lakes, on which I judged my corduroy friend had been exercising his privilege 
of killing. Grey Eagle has a local reputation as a summer resort, as has also 
Glenwood, which is situated on Lake Mmnewaska, a sheet of water, so I was 
informed, of considerable size and much beauty, which offers fish of many 
varieties. I meant to do my duty by the country through which I was traveling, 
and therefore made careful mention of all these facts in my note-book, complet- 
ing my task just in time to get in my seat as the train moved westward. I found 
Mr. Parke and Miss Dinsmore in active conversation, and was glad to bury 



18 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

myself in the pages of a novel with which I had been long burdened, but which 
had not before recommended itself to me. 

The only time that I care to read a novel is when I am very busy, and ought 
not to When I have nothing else to do, 1 lose all interest in it. In the present 
case, I was interested in watching the many changes that Miss Dinsmore's face 
was capable of taking to itself in a few moments. I had the impertinence to 
wonder where she was going, and why, and how it chanced that she was alone. 
Meanwhile, the conductor sat down beside me, and talked to me about Brainerd, 
which we were now rapidly approaching. 1 gathered from the conversation 
that the car-shops of the Northern Pacific were at Brainerd, and the machine- 
shops, and the boiler-shops, and a great many other places of the same sort, and 
that the railroad has a sanitarium there, where my conductor was taken care of, 
in a way that he praised at great length, on the occasion of a long illness. I 
had just entered in my note-book the fact that Brainerd had a population of 
io,ooo, and that she had a most satisfactory court-house and jail, erected at a 
cost of $30,000, when we reached the station, and Miss Dinsmore and my corduroy 
friend plunged out into the night and upon the platform. 

I considered that I already had cause for feeling aggrieved, but when my 
statistical young lumberman entered at this moment, I made up my mind that 
the good luck which I had always firmly considered my own had deserted me. 
No sooner did this painfully accurate young man perceive me, than he 
advanced with outstretched hand. 

" How are you, Mr. Miller ? " I said, stiffly. The reply was of a different sort. 

" So glad to know, Mr. Key," he exclaimed, " that you are taking a continued 
interest in the resources of the country. Have been visiting a section that I 
know you would have been interested in. There is a magnificent pine forest 
lying up here to the north. There is enough pine in it, sir, to build fifty cities 
with, and a navy of ships. I am putting it mildly, sir, upon my word I am. If 
you want to see a sample of that lumber, you ought to visit Gregory Park, right 
here in Brainerd, where there are ten acres of pines set aside by the town." Mr. 
Miller always spoke of trees as "lumber," as you might expect a butcher to 
refer to cattle as "beef." 

Parke came in with Miss Dinsmore, and heard us talking. The two sat 
down by us, as if they had not been rude to me, and of course I introduced 
Miller. Parke looked Miller over slowly, and put the expected inquiry. 

" Pardon me, sir," he said, "but are you a sportsman ? " 

I smiled softly to myself, and offered Miss Dinsmore my novel. She accepted 
the stupid thing with a look of gratitude, and 1 forgave her for the way she 
had treated me. After that I did not care how many statistics I had to 
listen to. 

My corduroy friend was enthusiastic over what he called the " Lak^ Park 
Region." 

" Have you never heard of that remarkable chain of lakes?" he exclaimed to 



A JOURNKV THROUGH WONDERLAND. 19 

ine, when he saw a look of ignorance in my eyes. " Mille Lac is only twenty-two 
miles southeast of here, and that is — " 

But Miss Dinsmore interrupted him. 

" I dare say you do not know how beautiful a butternut grove is," she said to 
me. " The trees are so generous, so beneficent, that you feel safe and comfortable 
as you walk under them. And of all things that I know of in the way of forests, 
there is nothing I more admire than one of maple. These two trees, the butternut 
and the maple, grow side by side, and a long beach of white gravel runs down into 
the green water. There are ferns and mosses and the gentian in the woods, 
and in the right season one can pick hundreds of strawberries there. There 
■are cranberry marshes near, and blueberries and raspberries grow wild. One can 
fish there and shoot, but I do not think," and she cast a reproachful look at the 
corduroy man, " that any appreciative person would want to destroy anything 
in such a beautiful spot." Parke shook his head at this, to him, inexplicable 
remark, but he knew better than to openly oppose a young woman with a chin 
like Miss Dinsmore's. 

" I've just come down from Duluth," the lumberman remarked to Miss 
Dinsmore, "and, I assure you I have seen some beauties." 

Miss Dinsmore looked shocked. 

" I hope you are not referring to ladies," she said. 

" Madam," returned the lumberman with dignity, " I am referring to lakes. 
They are scattered among the most placid and delightful meadows, and at this 
season these meadows are covered with gold and purple flowers." 

"The golden-rod and the aster," said the lady. 

"I suppose you may not be acquainted with the fact," Miller said, "that 
Minnesota has no less than 10,000 lakes." 

"You don't say so! " excitedly cried the corduroy man. 

" You are thinking what an opportunity there is for killing," cried Miss 
Dinsmore. 

" I suppose I am to be looked upon as a sort of public executioner," protested 
Parke. 

We had got on the subject of lakes, and we could not get away from it. 
Every town we stopped at was said to be in the vicinity of some lake, and I 
learned that in the season this part of the country was the particular resort of 
the sportsmen, who, though they came by the thousand, were literally swallowed 
up in the vastness of this solitude, and often traveled for days without meeting 
a companion. 

Before we reached Wadena, Miss Dinsmore had retired, after playing a merry 
little tune for us on a zither, the case of which had attracted my attention. We 
three men went out on the platform. A rolling plain lay stretched out beyond 
us, broken with gentle groves. The little place seemed to have an abundance 
■of activities. Two grain elevators loomed up black in the starlight. I heard 
from a drummer that there were six hotels in the place, a flouring-mill, with a 




(20) 



A JOURNEY IHROIUIII WONDERLAND. 21 

•capacity for loo barrels a day, a fouiulrv, aiul a large trade with the surrounding 
grain country. 

The drummer had just come from the Black Hills Branch of the Northern 
Pacific. This runs west from Wadena. He, too, was talking about lakes, and 
aroused the enthusiasm of the corduroy man to such an extent that he had an 
■extra " lay-over " marked on his ticket, and left us to test the delights of Battle 
Lake — or rather the two Battle Lakes, famous for their beauty of dell and cove 
and shore, but more famous still for their marvelous variety of fish. We 
traveled a few miles together before the i)roper station was reached, Parke 
meanwhile gathering up his endless quantity of traps, and turning one enrapt- 
ured ear to the recital of the tales of wonderful catches that the commercial 
gentleman poured into it. I, unfortunately, made no note of these tales, and can 
not reproduce them. To a man who knows nothing about fishing, and who has 
never read Izaak Walton since his early youth, these stories naturally have little 
point. I was more interested in the description of a chain of lakes much 
sought by the canoeist, and having easy portage between them. I peered out 
of the window into the darkness, wondering how far distant was that melan- 
choly ground on which the Lidians of the Sioux and Chippewa Nations poured 
out their fierce and hereditary hatred in such unavailing strife. 

The instructive drummer spoke of Fergus Falls and Wahpeton, on the 
Fergus & Black Hills Branch, as being good towns to do business in, both now 
rejoicing in elevators, the inevitable court-house, opera-house, and factories and 
mills. 

Detroit was the next point passed which offered particular attractions to 
me. This is becoming a very popular summer resort, having a hotel of gay 
architecture, suggesting midsummer pleasures, situated on Detroit Lake, a 
crescent-shaped sheet of water, with alternate banks and beaches. The lake 
has attractions of the sort likely to allure my corduroy friend, but it is sought 
-especially as a place of refuge from the heat of the East in the months of July 
and August. The town itself is in a bower of trees, and forests flank it. 

At Winnipeg Junction I bade good-bye to my friends with a certain regret 
— not because I was fond of them. I did not consider it good form to be fond 
of anyone on such short acquaintance. Lnpulsiveness is a characteristic of 
the Wild West. In the East we temper our enthusiasm with discretion. 

1 arrived in Winnipeg the next day, having enjoyed all the conveniences of 
a Pullman sleeper and dining-car by the way. Winnipeg is a town which 
quaintly combines the enterprise of the present with the relics of an interesting 
past. The Hudson Bay Company (vaguely associated in my mind with dashing 
French voyageurs, with the Lidian at the best of his alertness, subtlety, and 
daring, and with fur-hung halls where the nights of rare reunions were spent in 
memorable carousals) has here a most important post, and it still represents a 
wealth and power which has only ceased to seem extraordinary because the 
mind has become accustomed to the idea of great commercial organizations. 



22 A JdURNF.Y THROUGH WONDKRl.AX I). 

AVinnipeg has a population of 25,000, at which 1 might have been surprised" 
had I not learned the extent of her trade relations, which extend through the 
Canadian possessions as far west as the Rocky Mountains. 

Three days later, having transacted my business, I took the train for the 
South, first by the Northern Pacific & Manitoba road, and then by 'the Duluth 
&: Manitoba Division of the Northern Pacific. 

It was one of those clear, bright days, with a brisk wind, so common in that 
climate, and the world looked especially clean and well cared for, as I went 
rushing southward. Pembina is the oldest town in the whole West, having been 
settled in 1801, by the colonists brought to this country by the Earl of Selkirk. 
The population is peculiar. Canadians, French-Canadians, Icelanders, and 
Americans make up the little town, which, in ceasing to be a mere trading-post, 
has become the market for the rich farming country j^ound about. The valley of 
the Red River of the North has a fame for hard spring wheat which had reached 
even my ears — who am the most ignorant of men on such subjects. And I now 
learned that the yield was seldom below twenty bushels an acre, and often over 
thirty. Grafton is another town whose prosperity is owing to the rich agricult- 
ural country in its vicinity, and Grand Forks, which has a population of 10,000, 
shares the same advantage, and adds to it an active industry in logging. Rea 
Lake Falls stands at the junction of Clearwater and Red Lake rivers, which, 
between them, have no less than thirteen water-powers. 

I found myself not averse to getting back to Winnipeg Junction, for I had a 
hope that I might meet some of my old acquaintances. I was beginning to 
lose my dread of the statistical lumberman, and to forgive the corduroy man 
for suspecting me of an inclination to kill, and I never did lay up her sexagainst 
Miss Dinsmore. That young lady was to stop off with friends for a few days, 
somewhere, and the lumberman being on a tour for the express accumulation 
of knowledge, and the sportsman being the creature of caprice, 1 was likely, if 
my luck did not desert me, to meet any or all of them at any time. 

Business done, I was ready to devote myself to pleasure — or the nearest ap- 
proach to it that I could hope to find. So I settled down to a quiet enjoy- 
ment of the days, caring little what turned up next. I had a consciousness that 
I would sleep in a well-made bed, have well-cooked meals, carefully served, and 
the privilege of lolling all day 'in softly upholstered seats, and looking out 
upon an ever- changing scene. The prospect was comfortable. I was lazy — 
out of love with the world, and in love, jtist at present, with idleness. I did not 
imagine that the West held any personal interest for me, but I did not object to 
looking at it — it is as well to encourage these young and struggling commu- 
nities. So, with a silk dust-cap on my head, my feet comfortably encased in 
patent-leather ties, a pile of novels by my side, a box of cigars always in easy 
reach in the dining-car, I settled down to my journey, and wondered how long 
it took a New York woman to forget a man she had driven to despair; but the 
most humiliating part of it was, that in spite of all attempts to summon up 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 23 

sentiment on the subject, I was disgustnigly comfortable in spite of the despair. 
Whether it was the cooking, or the scenery, or the natural revolt of the mind 
too long troubled, I do not know; but the fact remains, I was comfortable. 

Figures do not mean very much to me, and the facts that I heard adduced 
by the many statisticians that I seemed fated to meet did not make the impres- 
sion they were expected to. As I left Minnesota, and entered upon the prairie 
stretches of Dakota, I was entertained by the sight, entirely new to me. Here 
were the plains, but a few years ago the haunt of the Indian and buffalo! Now, 
the wheat of North Dakota has the reputation of being the best in the world, 
and when one remembers how recently it acquired this reputation, and compares 
the population of the State at present with that of five years ago, he is per- 
suaded that no country contains more surprises than these United States. 

In this section of the country, a yield of twenty bushels per acre is usual, and 
twenty-five bushels is not surprising. The flour produced from hard spring 
wheat is said to be an especially valuable commodity, bakers beir.g able to get 
250 pounds of bread from a barrel of flour made from the spring wheat, and 
only 225 pounds from the same quantity of flour ground from winter wheat. 
At Fargo I made a note, in my fast-filling memoranda-book, to the effect that the 
Northern Pacific sends out a branch road, called the Fargo & South-Western 
Branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which extends to Lisbon and La Moure, 
both thriving towns in the midst of a good agricultural country. At Edgeley, 
the western terminus of this line, it is possible to make connections with the 
Milwaukee road, and at Oakes, the terminus of a southern extension, with the 
Chicago & North-Western. 

Having communicated these facts to my invaluable book, I was delighted to 
see, approaching down the length of the car. Miss Dinsmore, accompanied bv 
two elderly and discreet ladies. With a friendliness I thought very flattering, 
Miss Dinsmore took a seat adjoining mine, and introduced the two discreet 
ladies as her aunts. Then she helped them remove their brown veils, which 
were exactly alike, as were all their clothes. The ladies were not well seated 
before I met with another surprise in the appearance on the scene of the familiar 
figures of the lumberman and the gentleman in corduroy. I was naturally 
surprised at seeing all of my old friends appear together, but I thought it would 
be rude to ask questions, and contented myself with beginning a conversation 
such as I hoped would meet with the approval of the elderly ladies. 

"A beautiful country," said 1, affably. 

" 'Tis, for them that appreciates it," said one of the ladies, who was evidently 
more decisive than grammatical. 

"I'm sure I appreciate it," I said in an injured tone. ' 

"Well," said the decisive aunt, "you look as if you had sense." 

Miss Dinsmore smiled at me. I have always heard that women who have 
not fine teeth laugh witli their eyes; but the young lady opposite had certainly 
no occasion for concealing her teeth. [ was afraid, in spite of Miss Dinsmore's 




(24) 



A JOURNKV IHRorr,!! WONDKRLAND. 25 

presence, that the society was going to be depressing, wlien suddenly one of 
the aunts, who apparently had a desire to be hospitable, opened a small basket, 
and offered a portion of its contents to me. 

" Better take a doughnut," said she, sociably. " You are likely to get hungry 
fifty times a day on the cars." I refused with some embarrassment, and Miss 
Dinsmore came to the rescue. 

" There is no need for fretting about hunger in this land," she said. " Fargo, 
you know, is the headquarters of the Northern Pacific Elevator Company, and I 
hear they have fifty elevators round about here. I have been out visiting the 
Dalrymple farm. I suppose you do not know what that signifies. Mr. Key. 
There are twenty square miles of wheat there — I never felt so proud of my 
country as when I saw that wheat-field. You can not imagine how yellow that 
wheat was, or how responsive to the wind. When the sun and shadow played 
over it there was not one shade of yellow, but a hundred. It is the very embodi- 
ment of plenty ! And in harvest-time twenty-four self-binding reapers are 
driven over the fields at a time, cutting, so I have heard, at one sweep a swath 
of 192 feet." 

My two friends, the lumberman and the sportsman, did not seem interested m 
this conversation. In fact, they appeared to unite in taking a very serious view 
of life. I discovered Parke darting vicious side-long glances at the discreet and 
elderly aunts. The ladies moved to the other side of the car to enjoy some- 
thing of peculiar interest in the landscape, and I went over to where these dejected 
fellow-travelers were sitting. 

"What are you doing in this country?" I asked. "There are no trees to 
measure and nothing to kill, unless it is prairie dogs." 

They both looked at me and said not a word. I purchased a cigar and dis- 
creetly withdrew. Meanwhile the train went whizzing on through the beautiful 
Valley City in its amphitheatre of hills; through Sanborn, where a branch of the 
road runs north through a rich wheat country to Cooperstown, and on to 
Jamestown. 

Substantial and pleasant is Jamestown with its compact brick blocks, its 
wide streets, and its enterprise. The gentleman in corduroy recovered his 
spirits sufficiently to tell me that the Jamestown & Northern Railway ran from 
here up to Devil's Lake, in which he assured me it was possible to catch fish of 
the most remarkable size and quality. 

" And if you want to shoot geese, you can't go to a better place for it," he 
added; but he said it sadly, and it was evident that a blight had fallen upon 
his once exuberant spirits. 

We were pulling into the (Joteau.x de Missouri, that remarkable table-land 
which, like most glacial deposits, offers rich opportunities to the agriculturist. 
It lies between the valleys of the James and Missouri rivers, and runs north 
into the British possessions. 

As we passed Steele, Miss Dinsmore came over to say that the introduction 



•>6 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

of trees not indigenous to the soil was succeeding very well in North Dakota, 
and that box-elder, cotton-wood, and willow were being raised in a large nursery 
in the vicinity. It was strange for a woman to be so exact in her information, 
and I remarked as much to her. She said she had an interest in the country at 
large, and had read up on Dakota. But I saw there was something behind this, 
for the two gentlemen looked darker than ever. But, nothing daunted, Miss 
Dinsmore discoursed to me on the wonderful richness of the sage-brush land. 
To a man raised in the East, a stretch of sage-brush has a most discouraging 
appearance. It seems like a curse and a blight. But 1 soon became convinced 
that when once the sage-brush is removed, it is the richest farming country in 
the world. 

" Dakota does not seem to have many rivers," I said to Miss Dinsmore, to 
test her information on the subject. She was up in arms in a minute — ^quite as 
if I had been depreciating a piece of personal property. 

" I am surprised to hear you," she cried. " Beside the Missouri and the Red 
River, which are navigable, there are the Cannon Ball, and the Heart, the Sweet 
Briar, and the Little Missouri. And, speaking of water, the Dakotas have the 
most remarkable system of artesian wells known in the world. The range of 
present wells east and west is fully fifty miles, while north and south it follows 
from Yankton, on the Missouri River, to Jamestown, here on the Northern Pacific 
Railroad. The James River Valley is the center of the water belt. There are also 
two other areas of subterranean water partially exploited, and they are both in 
North Dakota. In addition to the rivers and the wells, the Dakotas have a 
large area covered with small lakes and lagoons. So you see, Mr. Key, there 
will be no lack of water here." 

"Good thing," said I, "seeing what che prohibition tendencies are." 

We passed through Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, a healthy town 
with a reputation which needs no confirmation from me. Miss Dinsmore 
whispered that there was coal in the region of which there were good reports. 
She warned me that 1 should miss much if I stayed in the car, for we were 
about to cross the Missouri on one of the finest bridges in the western country. 
Therefore, against all rules, we stood on the platform and craned our necks over 
to view with admiration this wonderful structure of trusses, piers, girders, and 
cords of .;teel and iron The Missouri, yellow and strong, flowed southward. 

" It is a little pathetic,' said Miss Dinsmore, who was leaning over the brass 
bar in the vestibule of the car, '• to look up this Missouri Valley and think of the 
change that has come to it. The Indian has gone, and the buffalo; and the 
bear and the beaver are all but gone. We turned the corn-fields of the Indian 
into battle-grounds. Civilization must go on, I suppose, but it is rather hard that 
the Indian must always be the victim of it." 

We arrived at the village of Mandan, and, getting off at the station, wandered 
into ^n excellent curio shop that invites the promenader from the platform. 
The owl and the eagle, the American lion and the grizzly, are all liere. There 



A JOURNEY IHROl-c;!! WOXDF.RLAX I). 27 

were some specimens of exquisitely decorated pottery here, also, which 
had been dug from bluffs two miles from Mandan, at the junction of the 
Hart and Missouri rivers. Here are the remains of a mysterious people for 
whom the students have not yet been able to account. They show a knowledge 
of art which certainly was not possessed by the American Indians as we have 
know them. The cemetery of this gigantic race covers about loo acres, and 
will furnish interesting study for some American Schlieman. 

I mu.st not forget to mention that Fort Abraham Lincoln lies five miles 
southwest of Mandan. 

Just beyond Gladstone lies Dickinson, which, with its brick manufacturing, 
its sandstone and coal-bed.s, lies in the midst of a country well adapted to agri- 
culture and grazing. 

It chanced to be nearing twilight as we came into the Bad Lands; these are 
more popularly called Pyramid Park, but I cling, myself, to the name given 
them by the old French voyageurs. 

A gentleman of universal information pointed out varieties of lignite, argil- 
laceous limestone, friable sandstone, and potsherd, and gave me a dissertation 
on the Pliocene Age, and the effects of fire and water; but I saw the place with 
different eyes. To me it was a blasted heath, on which Macbeth's witches- 
might have met; or a spot that might appropriately be selected by the witches in 
which to celebrate Walpurgis night. Buttes of brown, of gray and white with 
tops of red and cuts of dull, sulphurous blue, twisted and rent, and distorted 
into shapes so tortuous that to my mind they suggested only suffering and strife, 
stretched ouf before the eye everywhere. My friends told me that the land was 
not unwholesome — that even on the top of these stricken-looking hills, rich grains 
and vegetables would grow; but the dance of the witches was all I could see, 
and I was sure I should never seek to dwell among such scenes, unless, in some 
hour of deeper depression than I had ever experienced, I should find a subtle 
sympathy amid these grotesque and unique scenes. 

At this time I noticed that a strange quiet was falling upon our party. The 
discreet maiden aunts no longer helped themselves to wafers from their wicker 
baskets. Though Miss Dinsmore's cheeks were red, and her eyes were unusually 
bright, she had ceased to converse; and as for the two gentlemen, their gloom 
had deepened until, as Charles Lamb has put it, "they might have thrown a 
damper over a funeral." 

We had just reached a little town which intruded its calm commonplaceness 
into this astounding scene, when Miss Dinsmore volunteered the information 
that she should leave us at the next station. I expressed my dismay with a 
gesture. 

"Yes," said Miss Dinsmore; "I am going to live back here in the country 
about fifty miles." I regarded her in horrified astonishment. She colored, but 
it was evidently not from resentment. 

"You see," explained Miss Dinsmore, " I stopped at Fargo to get my aunts. 




GEYSERS AND FALLS IN THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 



(28) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. ^l' 

I 

who have come on to attend my wedding." That explained everything— the 
depression of the himberman and the corduroy man, and the subdued mood 
that had fallen on the party. 

" 1 am delighted to hear it," I cried. " I presume that you know where you 
will lintl anyone in this country to marry, but I can see nothing but blasted 
rocks and barren valley." 

"Then I will tell you what you shall do," Miss Dinsmore cried; "you shall 
come to my wedding, and I will show you miles of fertile valley behind these 
rocks where your witches dance, and instead of its being a spot selected by 
Mei)histopheles from which to curse the world, you will find plenty and comfort, 
and, what will doubtless surprise you more, companies of good jolly fellows who 
make the best of friends." 

Then she dilated upon the great cattle ranches, and the home-like "shacks " 
where the ranchmen live. After this, it was not hard to guess that it was with 
one of these ranchmen, and in one of these " shacks," that Miss Dinsmore 
expected to find consolation for living in such a country. 

We left the road at Mingusville, and I was pleased to find that the lumber- 
man and the gentleman in corduroy were to accompany us ; but it being already 
the " edge of evening," as Lowell puts it, and the road being tortuous in the 
extreme, it was thought best for us all to wait over night at an inn. The gentle- 
man to whom Miss Dinsmore had paid the compliment of coming across the 
Dakota plains to meet, joined us. He was an enormous young fellow, with a 
black, drooping mustache, slightly faded by the sun, who, in spite of the fact 
that he had come to meet his bride, wore a gray flannel shirt, knotted at the 
throat with a silk handkerchief of the most uncompromising tints. He was so 
full of life and activity that I was m constant fear that he might break some of 
the furniture, or tread upon my toes— an offense which I never forgive— or acci- 
dentally sit upon one of the prim maiden aunts and demolish her. I have never 
yet met a young man of whom there seemed to be so much. It was not his size 
alone; it was what in Boston they would call his " atmosphere." 

The next morning, mounted on a number of the capricious cayuses, we 
started on our journey. The sun was still low in the east, red and large, and 
phantasmal mists were wreathing about all these uncanny hills and hollows. 1 
felt as if 1 were riding through the land where the German gnomes dwelt, and 
w^ould not have been surprised at any moment to see a troop of them, hump- 
backed and hideous, working with their anvils in this infernal forge, where the 
scoria of dead fires strewed the ground, and in some hollows of which mines 
of lignite were burning, as they had been ever since the memory of man— a sort 
of eternal adoration to the unwholesome spirit of the place. A few gnarled, 
twisted trees, which seemed to be protesting against their lives, grew by the 
water-courses, and all over the country grew the short bunch-grass, which, 
when It is cured, is said to make nutritious hay ; and side by side with it grew 
the sage-brush, the color of the mistletoe. Brown, bare, and bizarre, the 



30 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

landscape stood for the very incarnation of de-olalion and grotesqiterie. The 
cattle roam in great herds over " round-ups " of fifty miles or more, feeding on 
the fine prairies back of the buttes, in the summer, and in the winter taknig 
refuge among the buttes and in the sparsely timbered sections. 

It was two days before 1 left the hospitable shack of my friend, the ranch- 
man. I need not tell all I saw in this remarkable country, but I was convinced 
that it was possible for a man to make a fortune there if he understood cattle- 
raising. A wild, adventurous, not unfascinating life it is, with a rich promise 
of opulence to aid the patience and assist the judgment. As for the mterior 
of the shack, it was one of the most delightful 1 ever saw. The floors were 
covered with beautiful skins, the walls decorated with antlers, and cabinets of 
the exquisite crystals and agates chipped from the buttes of Pyramid Park; 
the great fire-place was made of squares of the red potsherd, cemented together; 
three or four hammocks hung about the room; a buffet, not innocent of select 
cordials and liquors, some fowling-pieces, and a guitar, made up an ensemble 
which could not but be inviting. I was relieved, too, to find that my little friend 
would not be without woman's society here. Many of the ranchmen have their 
wives with them, and it goes without saying that where is money there will be 
gaiety. 

-Bidding farewell to our friends, including the discreet maiden aunts, I and 
my two traveling companions returned by the same weird road over which we 
had previously journeyed, and took a train bound for the setting sun. For 340 
miles we followed the windings of the Yellowstone, a river so clear and bright, 
so full of bewitching cascades and green islands, that it seemed each hour as if 
it had been freshly born and had no relation with this old and weary world. 

We passed the lively town of Glendive, and then several quiet and wholesome 
hamlets, at last reaching Miles City, a town which has the distinction of being 
the only one, save Bozeman, on the Northern Pacific lines which did not owe its 
origin to the building of the road. It is at present the key to a rich cattle 
country, there being 700,000 cattle on the ranges round about. Ninety miles 
farther on, after passing through a historic tract of country, made famous with 
the names of some of our best Indian fighters, we came to Custer, the station 
for Fort Custer, which lies thirty miles distant, and, while not equaling Fort 
Keough, which lies just beyond Miles City, in its equipment or garrison, is 
one of the most notable military posts in the West. It was near here that the 
yellow-haired hero whose name the fort bears met with his memorable and 
tragic death. 

Billings is a town of steady growth, situated at the foot of Clark's Fork 
Bottom, in the midst of characteristic Western scenery, at once picturesque and 
peculiar. It is only second to Miles City as a shipping-point for cattle; 
and gold, silver, and coal are found in the country tributary. The coal comes 
from Red Lodge, and the gold and silver mines are adjacent to Cooke City, 
and are reached by the Yellowstone Branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 



. A JOURNEY IHKOUCll WONDKKl.AN D. 31 

connection with a wagon-road from Cuinabar. The gentleman m corduroy 
deserted us at this point, being won by tales of wild hunting adventures m this 
country, and by the promise of marvelous scenery. " 1 will see you again, ' he 
said as we parted. '' I am sure it is our fate to meet. I would go on with you, 
but there is a canon south of here that men should be willing to travel a thou- 
san . miles to see, and 1 am too patriotic to turn my back on it." 

At Big Timber, my lumberman deserted me, and 1 was obliged to go on my 
journey alone. He also paid me the compliment of saying that he parted from 
me with regret; and, while he could urge no canon in excuse of this disloyalty, 
he thought^he flourishing saw-mill a sufficient excuse for leaving any man, even 
his best'' friend, 1 used to tell him that if he ever got to Heaven, and found 
the gates were really of jasper, he would refuse to go in. That man had 
no sympathy with anything but hardwood. 

At Springdale we took on a number of persons who had been recuperating 
at Hunter's'' Hot Springs, and at Livingston— of which I will say more at 
another time— we left the comfortable seclusion of our Pullman car tor a train 
less exclusive though equally luxurious, running south to Cinnabar, the gateway 
of the Yellowstone National Park. 

1 hardly know how to describe the ride from Livingston to Cinnabar. The 
road lies through the third or lower canon of the Yellowstone, which is an 
ancient lake-bed, and bears the name of Paradise Valley. Through it the river 
tumbles and pounds and laughs, clear as crystal and cold as ice. 1 he rich 
ranches, stretching beyond the level up onto the moraines, look like great Per- 
sian rugs with their harmonious blending of colors. On each side the mount- 
ains rise, each bearing its grim history of volcanic struggles, of glacial 
epochs On Cinnabar Mountain the strata is vertical, and in one remarkable 
spot where the stratum of soft material is washed out, there is a formidable slide 
2 ooo feet in length between jagged walls of rock. But this is not a district in 
which one wishes to specify and particularize. 1, and I am sure many others, 
will prefer to take it as a beautiful whole. At Cinnabar, coaches were m wait- 
inc. to take us to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, and we drove down through 
a ruo-ged and majestic country to this capacious hostelry. There the evening 
was made memorable to me by three things-some excellent music, which I 
believe is provided every night of the summer for guests, the making of some 
pleasant new acquaintances, and the reading of that portion of 1 almage s ser- 
mon written after his visit to the West, in which he refers to the scenery of the 
Yellowstone Park. It was read to us by a young lady from New Orleans, with 
the dulcet inflections for which the ladies of her city are noted: 

" But the most wonderful part of this American Continent is the Ydlowstone 
Park. My visit there made upon me an ,|mpress.on that ^'^^ J^jJ"'"^^', 
After all poetry has exhausted itself, and all the Morans and ^lers adts and 
the other ^enchanting artists have completed their ^^^^7^^' ^^erewil be other 
revelations to make, and other stories of its beauty and wrath splendor and 
agony, to be recited. The Yellowstone 'Park is a geologists paradise, la 




PHARAOH— HOODOO COUNTRY, YELL O/.'STONE PARK 



(32) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 33 

some portions of it there seems to be the anarchy of the elements fire and 
water, and the vapor born of that marriage terrific. Geyser cones or hills of 
crystal that have been over 5,000 years growing. In places, the earth throbbing, 
sobbing, groaning, quaking with aqueous paro.xysm. 

"At the expiration of every sixty-five minutes, one of the geysers tosses its 
boiling water 185 feet in the air, and then descends into swinging rainbows. 
Caverns of pictured walls large enough for the sepulcher of the human race. 
Formations of stone in shape and color of calla lily, of heliotrope, of rose, of 
cowslip, of sunflower, and of gladiola. Sulphur and arsenic, and oxide of iron, 
with their delicate pencils, turning the hills into a Luxemburg or a Vatican pict- 
ure gallery. The so-called Thanatopsis Geyser, exquisite as the Bryant poem it 
was named after, and the so-called Evangeline Geyser, lovely as the Longfellow 
heroine it commemorates. The so-called Pulpit Terrace, from its white eleva- 
tion, preaching mightier sermons of God than human lips ever uttered. The 
so-called Bethesda Geyser, by the warmth of which invalids have already been 
cured, the Angel of Health continually stirring the waters. Enraged craters, 
with heat at 500 degrees only a little below the surface. 

" Wide reaches of stone of intermingled colors — blue as the sky, green as the 
foliage, crimson as the dahlia, white as the snow, spotted as the leopard, tawny 
as the lion, grizzly as the bear — in circles, in angles, in stars, in coronets, in sta- 
lactites, in stalagmites. Here and there are petrified growths, or the dead trees 
and vegetation of other ages kept through a process of natural embalmment. 
In some places, waters as innocent and smiling as a child making a first attempt 
to walk from its mother's lap, and not far off as foaming and frenzied and 
ungovernable as a maniac in murderous struggle with his keepers. 

" But after you have wandered along the geyserite enchantment for days, and 
begin to feel that there can be nothing more of interest to see, you suddenly 
come upon the peroration of all majesty and grandeur — the Grand Canon. It 
is here that, it seems to me — and I speak it with reverence — Jehovah seems to 
have surpassed himself. It seems a great gulch let down into the eternities. 
Here, hung up and let down, and spread abroad, are all the colors of land and 
sea and sky; upholstering of the Lord God Almighty; best work of the 
Architect of worlds; sculpturing by the Infinite; masonry by an Omnipotent 
trowel. Yellow ! You never saw yellow unless you saw it there. Red ! You 
never saw red unless you saw it there. Violet ! You never saw violet unless 
you saw it there. Triumphant banners of color. In a cathedral of basalt. 
Sunrise and Sunset married by the setting of rainbow ring. 

"Gothic arches, Corinthian capitals, and Egyptian basilicas built before 
human architecture was born; huge fortifications of granite constructed before 
war forged its first cannon; Gibraltars and Sebastopols that never can be 
taken; Alhambras, where kings of strength and queens of beauty reigned long 
before the first earthly crown was empearled; thrones on which no one but 
the King of heaven and earth ever sat; fount of waters at which the lesser 
hills are baptized, while the giant cliffs stand round as sponsors. For thou- 
sands of years before that scene was unveiled to human sight, the elements 
were busy, and the geysers were hewing away with their hot chisels, and glaciers 
were pounding with their cold hammers, and hurricanes were cleaving with their 
lightning strokes, and hailstones giving the finishing touches, and after all these 
forces of Nature had done their best, in our century the curtam dropped, and the 
world had a new and divinely inspired revelation, the Old Testament written on 
papyrus, the New Testament written on parchment, and now this last testament 
written on the rocks. 

3 



34 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

" Hanging over one of the cliffs, I looked off until I could not get my breath, 
then, retreating to a less exposed place, I looked down again. Down there is 
a pillar of rock that in certain conditions of the atmosphere looks like a pillar 
of blood. Yonder are fifty feet of emerald on a base of 500 feet of opal; 
walls of chalk resting on pedestals of beryl; turrets of light tumbling on floors 
of darkness; the brown brightening into golden; snow of crystal melting 
into fire of carbuncle; flaming red cooling into russet; cold blue warming 
into saffron; dull gray kindling into solferino; morning twilight flushing 
midnight shadows; auroras crouching among rocks. 

" Yonder is an eagle's nest on a shaft of basalt. Through an eye-glass we see 
among it the young eagles, but the stoutest arm of our group can not hurl a 
stone near enough to disturb the feathered domesticity. Yonder are heights 
that would be chilled with horror but for the warm robe of forest foliage with 
which they are enwrapped; altars of worship at which nations might kneel; 
domes of chalcedony on temples of porphyry. See all this carnage of color up 
and down the cliffs; it must have been the battle-field of the war of the ele- 
ments. Here are all the colors of the wall of heaven, neither the sapphire nor 
the chrysolite, nor the topaz, nor the jacinth, nor the amethyst, nor the jasper, nor 
the twelve gates of twelve pearls wanting. If spirits, bound from earth to 
heaven, could pass up by way of this caiion, the dash of heavenly beauty would 
not be so overpowering. It would only be from glory to glory. Ascent through 
such earthly scenery, in which the crystal is so bjight and the red so flaming, 
would be fit preparation for the ' sea of glass mingled with fire.' 

*' Standing there in the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone Park on the morn- 
ing of August 9th, for the most part we held our peace, but after a while it 
flashed upon me with such power I could not help but say to my comrades : 
'What a hall this would be for the last judgment ! ' See that mighty cascade 
with the rainbows at the foot of it ! If those waters congealed and transfixed 
with the agitations of that day, what a place they would make for the shining 
feet of a judge of quick and dead! And those rainbows look now like the 
crowns to be cast" at his feet. At the bottom of this great caiion is a floor, on 
which the nations of the earth might stand, and all up and down these galleries 
of rock the nations of heaven might sit. And what reverberation of archangels' 
trumpets there would be through all these gorges, and from all these caverns, 
and over all these heights ! Why should not the greatest of all the days the 
world shall ever see close amid the grandest scenery Omnipotence ever built ? " 

After this it seems superfluous for me to mention anything I saw or thought 
in this wonderful country; but it is pleasant to write the assurance that not only 
will the visitor of the future see all that has been described by this most graphic 
of preachers, but he will also be able to visit the Yellowstone Lake, where 
hotels are now completed, and the steel-hulled boat, capable of accommodating 
150 persons, is ready for use. 

I left the Park with a feeling of physical vigor, but of mental fatigue. I had 
seen and felt too much. The excitement and exaltation had been too great, 
and I was glad to get among more commonplace scenes. 

Of the many frier.as I had met in the Park, only the gentleman who bore the 
descriptive name of Mr. Bolter was to accompany me on my westward journey. 
He confided to me the fact that having spent two fortunes in traveling, he was 
now preparing to make a third, and was consequently in search of investments 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WOK DHRLANI). '"^S 

Which would bring him quick returns. In these h.vestments 1 afterward 
became much interested, and indeed the interest began at Livmgston. Mr. 
Bolter decided that, as Livingston was the central headquarters of an impor- 
tant railroad division and the junction point of the Park branch with the main 
line it was bound to grow, aside from the fact that it is, and ever must 
be 'the chief town in an important mining country, embracing such well- 
known camps as Cooke City, Castle Mountain, and Neihart. The demand for 
houses and the astonishing prices cheerfully paid for rent induced my specula- 
tive fnend to purchase ground and order the erection of severa ^^bstan al 
dwellings As these residences were bespoken, to use the words of Mr. Bolter 
even before the contract for their erection was completed, he started westward 
in the best of moods, and insisted on treating me at each meal to an economical 
bottle of Zinfandel. It was during these times that we gravely discussed the 
.olden State of Montana and its future. I learned that the rivers in the State 
Tvere navigated by steamboats a distance of 1,500 miles. I learned o the rich 

"levs by the large rivers; of the great growth of trees m the northwestern 
part ;f the State; of the vast ranges of cattle and sheep; of the sweet and nutn- 

ious brasses, and, above all and over all, the fabulous tales of mineral w-ealth. 

As I writ; I observe in my note-book a little pasted clipping cut from an 
interview with Col. R. J. Hinton, Engineer to the Senate Committee on Irnga- 

tion It is as follows : , , 

'' On the east side of the continental nanges, the abundant waters that supply 
.nd n?ake u,X Missouri and Mississippi all take up their rise and flow through 
Mont ma There is enough water in them to easily reclaim 40,000,000 acres o 
firt le and now entirely Idle. The stream beds flow from 250 to 500 feet 

ofTese^trea™°ar?o enable them io be turned from their beds for the ,rr,ga- 
? f ?K. t^hle iHnds In Montana at the present moment only about 650,000 
res Ire u der cul fvation byirrigation. B^o.eman is the center of the larges 
frr'ated grain section. Missoula, in the extreme northwet port.on of the 
St^e Dromises to be the best orchard and small gram region. 

W,U,t™ promise of such wealth as this, I said to myself, added to the 
natural wealth that already exists in these brown and rugged mountan>s, what 
may not the State of Montana become! At Bozeman, a beaut, |.M>tUe.y of 
. «o people, I learned that I was at the very gateway of Gallatm Valley, so 
noted for ts wheat, its oats, and its barley. The Gallatin Valley. I temembered 
was considered by the Senatorial Committee on Irr.gat.on as one of the most 
salient examples of the good that could be worked by irrigation. ' 

N a'r man are aL rich coal-fields. These lie in close proximity to the 
town and are of pure bituminous coal, excellently adapted for coking purposes, 
and being therefore available for the smelters. Bo.eman is fortunate in its 
education'al advantages, having, in addition to its public schools, a Presby- 
terian academy. 




(36) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 37 

Near Gallatin, where the Madison, Gallatin, and Jefferson rivers unite with 
such equal and mighty force that the first explorers could not tell which of 
them deserved to be called the continuation of the Missouri, I saw the new 
branch road of the Northern Pacific, running south and west to Butte, and 
bringing that city 120 miles nearer St. Paul. The next two weeks were spent 
by my speculative friend and myself in a country which can never fail to 
impress itself on my imagination. 

These days are so full of interest that I hardly know which to speak of first. 
There was the day at Townsend, for instance. Townsend is in itself a quiet 
little place, more interesting to the tourist for the reason that it sends a daily stage 
to White Sulphur Springs than for any other reason; but not far from Town- 
send, across the Missouri Valley, in a northwesterly direction, is a wonderful 
series of precipitous canons among the mountains. Cut and wrenched by the 
elements and fantastically colored, polished with avalanches and beautified with 
mists, Hellgate Canon presents the most awful beauty that can be found in 
the State of Montana. To tell the truth, for the most part the mountains are 
not impressive around Helena and Butte; they are generous swelling hills, 
mighty in size, but not impressive to the eye, and when not covered with snow 
are clothed with the russet-colored grasses. 

We reached Helena on a September day, and the picture that we saw was a 
brown one. Everywhere the generous hills rose up to the sky, covered with 
that uniform brown tint ; the very buildings themselves seemed to tone in with 
the prevailing color; the sky made the only variation. Stretching out beyond 
the city lay the fertile Prickly Pear Valley, and up and down the slopes of the 
streets climbed the houses built on ground that has become more valuable than 
the gold that used to be washed from those same streets in the days of the rich 
placer mining. 

My friend and I registered at the Broadwater Hotel. The Broadwater, 
which is located on the Northern Pacific Railroad, near the city, is one of the 
most remarkable hotels at which it was ever my privilege to stop. It cost, 
so I was assured, and as I can easily believe, $350,000; but this mcludes a 
pleasant park, whose greenery is most grateful to the eye wearied of that brown 
landscape. And it also has a sanitarium at which the people of Helena find no 
little part of their amusement. A steam street motor runs from Helena to the 
Broadwater, which lies about three miles distant from the city, and passes 
through the imposing residence portion in which stand the homes of many 
millionaire miners. 

The occasion for the building of the sanitarium in this green glen is the 
existence of the Hot Springs, which contain chemicals said to be especially 
desirable for a person suffering with the rheumatism. I did not suffer with the 
rheumatism, but I was quite willing to enter the sanitarium, whose Moorish 
architecture at once attracted and puzzled my eye. Once within, I stood aston- 
ished. A tank, 300 feet long and 180 feet wide, of clear, steaming water flowed 



38 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

before me. Above was a roof of arched and polished pine; around, a glimmer 
of prismatic colors, for the sides of the building are of glass of the most 
brilliant tints. At one end of the tank, over a great pile of straggling rocks, 
fiows a small cataract of green water; and oriole windows, set with stained glass, 
are so arranged that, in whatever position the sun chances to be, a rainbow is 
sure to play in this musical, swift-flowing fall. But this was not all that inter- 
ested me. All about this pile of rocks, right in the clear rush of water, stood 
groups of nymphs — nymphs, it is true, in very modern bathing-suits. Their 
attitudes were none the less graceful from the fact that they were not free from 
self-consciousness; and all the while the air was rent with the playful shrieks of 
several hundred more nymphs who disported in the tank below. With tumbled, 
dripping hair and flourish of white arms, and struggling and gurgling as some 
inexpert swimmer went beyond her distance in the tank, with fights in which 
Neptune and Aphrodite might have taken part, and the ever-changing transfor- 
mation up there in the falls where the prettiest of the nymphs posed, an hour 
passed very rapidly. 

The hotel itself is furnished in exquisite taste, with cool, inviting bath-room.s 
among its luxuries, and a table service as dainty and complete as anything one 
could find in the most luxurious home. vSitting here in the pleasant office I 
fell in with a gentleman who, in the phraseology of the country, had recently 
"struck it rich." 

This man's history was a tragic one. His manners were convincing, being a 
reminiscence of the time when it was dangerous to question the accuracy of a 
Montana citizen. He was the most hospitable and friendly of men to his 
friends, but to his enemies — but I mistake. He had no enemies. They were 
all dead. Fortunately for my health, we were friends, and he used to smoke 
my cigars with child-like confidence. 

" I've been a trail-blazer in my day," he vouchsafed,. '' an' there aint no man 
in this country knows more 'bout the place than me." 

This honest pride was justified by the facts he confided to me and my note- 
book, some of which I reproduce, seeing in my mind's eye, as I do so, this good 
man with his hard hands, his keen eyes, his checked suit, diamonds, and high- 
heeled boots. 

From him I learned that Helena, standing, as she does, midway between 
Tacoma and St. Paul, has a signal advantage commercially. She boasts a popu- 
lation of 22,000, an increase of 10,000 in three years. She is the capital of the 
proud young State, and is likely to remain so. Until 1892 this honor is assured 
her by her charter. In her First National Bank alone she has a deposit of 
$4,000,000. And this is a fair indication of the immense wealth invested in the 
mines, smelters, flumes, and cattle ranches round about. Her two reduction 
works each have a capacity of fifty tons daily. Millions of dollars have been 
expended in her great smelter. Business blocks and residences of pretension 
and a solidity, too, seldoni met with in America, are being raised in every 



, A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 39 

direction. This is the result of no unhealthy " boom," but comes from a sort of 
concerted action on the part of Helena citizens. For many years, now, fortunes 
have been a-making at Helena, and the people have a reckless way of referring 
to millions where the more discreet easterner would speak of thousands. But 
only recently has the rich man of Helena come to appreciate the. significance of 
his money. In short, the people of Helena have passed the first stage of < alth, 
and reached the second. They have made their money; they are now beginning to 
spend it. 

There are five public schools in Helena, employing at least thirty teachers. 
The Montana Wesleyan University is being erected five miles from Helena. It 
will be reached by a motor, and is situated in the midst of 200 acres of rich valley 
land. The cost of the building will be $50,000. At Bozeman there is also a 
Presbyterian academy, in the midst of those placid and luxuriant gardens which 
distinguish that town from those surrounding it, and prove that flower and garden- 
culture in Montana is only a matter of successful irrigation. At Deer Lodge 
there is a large Presbyterian college which has grown till it occupies three 
imposing buildings. But the facts on which my mining friend most prided 
himself were those which referred to the material wealth of the young State. 
He assured me that at the last assessment the valuation of assessable property 
in fourteen counties was $60,666,924.70. The output of minerals for the last 
year from Montana was considerable over $40,000,000. He had the output 
of each famous mine at his finger ends, and dazzled me with stories of mar- 
velous dividends. 

"Why, in Montana," he cried, "a business investment will bring all the way 
from fifteen to forty cents on the dollar, while in the East, what do you do ? 
You worry along on a miserable six and one-half per cent., and imagine that 
you are becoming a millionaire when you get eight." 

There was one thing I noticed here, and later about all the flourishing cities of 
the West. They are in love with electricity. Almost every town has a system 
of arc and incandescent lights, and many of them, Helena among the number, a 
Inie of electric street-cars, 

Helena has the distinction of being the largest railroad center in Montana, 
and to this, perhaps, more than anything else, does she owe her wealth; for the 
mines of silver, of copper, and gold with which she is surrounded, would 
have been of comparatively little use to her without the roads which have made 
them accessible. 

We spent one day visiting the Gates of the Rocky Mountains — where the 
Missouri cuts itself through a spur of the Belt Mountains between jagged and 
stupendous cliffs. 

Wickes, Calvin, Rimini, and Marysville are the termini of three branches of 
the Northern Pacific which run from Helena. Each of these towns is the center 
of a mining district. The Drum Lumon mine, near Marysville, has the reputa- 
tion of giving a yearly yield of $2,000,000 in gold and silver. In going from 




MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS HOTEL, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, 
(40) 



A JOURNKN' 'niR()r(.ll WONDKRI.AM). 41 

Helena to Garrison one passes over the Rocky Mountain Divide, over the 
MuUan Pass; the pine and spruce decorate the rugged buttresses in an unavail- 
ing effort to soften their gauntness. I thought of my friend in corduroy as I 
learned of the game said to haunt these lonely forests and steep mountain-sides. 

Taking the Montana Union Railway, a branch of the Northern Pacific, Mr. 
Bolter and I made our way to Butte. While I know that all that eastern men 
care to know about Butte can be answered by a series of figures, I am averse 
myself to speaking of this, the greatest mining city of the world, in just this 
manner; for I felt as if the air was filled with gold — there were fortunes and 
rumors of fortunes on every hand. Neither the house that a man lives in nor 
the clothes that he wears are any indication of his financial condition. Of what 
consequence are the possession of a few linen 'shirts more or less, when, before 
a year is over, one may be a millionaire several times told ? If one must quote 
figures about Butte City, however, it is a comfort to know that these figures 
can be generous. The pay-roll of the men connected with the mines and 
smelters is at its minimum $500,000 a month, and it has been known to reach 
$870,000. It is said that no shaft was ever sunk in Butte which would not 
bring rich returns, if followed long enough. One mine in Butte — which has not 
the reputation of being any richer than several others, but from which I chanced 
to obtain figures — has paid $5,000,000 of dividends in eight years. The divi- 
dends of another mining company are $225,000 per month. Indeed, it seems 
impossible to even dig a ditch in this country without striking pay-dirt, and it 
is actually a fact that recently, in digging a sewer in the heart of the city, a lead 
of silver was struck which gives $280 per ton. I had always thought myself a 
fairly well-off man, but in this El Dorado, this community of millionaires, I had 
an impoverished feeling which for the first time made me wish to celebrate the 
honest virtues of low estate and poverty to sustain my self-love. The popula- 
tion of Butte is reckoned at about 25,000. 

A short line branches from the Montana Union and runs to Anaconda, from 
which switch-backs and numerous tracks reach the smelter and concentrating 
works, which lie in two great groups on the side of the hills. The town lies in 
the sheltered valley among the brown mountains, its life being the great smelter 
and concentrating works. The output of copper here is greater than at any 
other point in the world. About 500 men are employed, directly or indirectly, 
by this enormous institution. The smelter is owned by a quartette of 
gentlemen, who, for the convenience of themselves and the large number of 
superintendents, chemists, etc., employed by them in the smelter, have erected 
a beautiful hotel, known as the Montana. It is exquisite in its appointments, 
and the service is unsurpassed. Erected at a cost of $250,000, it is, from the 
stand-point of the architect, the decorator, and the epicure, above criticism. 
The population is at present 6,000. 

In neglecting to speak of the newspapers of the West, no disrespect is 
intended. The editors of these journals will take it for granted that it is only 



42 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

lack of space to do justice to the merits of their respective periodicals that 
induces this silence on the subject. 

Returning to Garrison, which is the junction with the mam line of the Northern 
Pacific Railroad, one passes through Deer Lodge, which, I am sure my corduroy 
friend would have been interested to know, derived its name from the vast 
herds of deer which used to wander through this valley. Rich grazing and 
farming lands lie round about, and the town serves as a general distributing 
point for the supplies for the mining district in the immediate vicinity. The 
scenery adjacent is not so grim as that about Butte and Helena. The land- 
scape is relieved with trees, farms are luxuriant, and one receives the cheering 
assurance that there are numerous lakes and trout streams near by in the 
mountains. It was at Garrison that I received a letter from my sporting friend, 
a part of which I transcribe below: 

" I have been following up the Yellowstone. 1 have been fishing in it! And 
the only thing that has detracted from my complete enjoyment is the fact that 
you we're not with me — you who were designed by nature for the wielding of 
the rod. I have often heard it said that the first need of the fisherman was 
patience. But this does not hold good of the man that fishes in the Yellow- 
stone. Here, nothing is needed but skill. I swear to you that in sixty minutes 
I landed eighteen fish, and I had my daintiest tackle, and gave a fair show to 
them. 

"To feel the water rushing strong and cold against your legs, to feel your 
lungs swelling with that mountain air, to know the sudden and sweet sensation 
that is communicated from the line to your arm, and from your arm to your 
brain, when a bite comes, is one of the finest things in life, my boy — and you 
are missing it ! I commiserate with you. You have missed your vocation. 
But I hope yet to see you with a rod in your hand. 

"Fraternally yours, Parke." 

The effect of this letter upon me was curious. At the outset of my acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Parke, -I had lazily wondered how a man could take such a serious 
interest in matters as he did. Apparently, I had undergone a revulsion of feel- 
ing, for what I now wondered over was the fact that he could be so frivolous. 
It was evident that I was losing my indifference, and even against my will be- 
coming interested in the West. But when my surroundings are taken into con- 
sideration, I am sure that even the most blase will forgive me for my change of 
mind. For instance, I chanced to say to Mr. Bolter : 

" Where does that Drummond & Phillipsburg Branch of the Northern Pacific 
run to ?" 

" Down to the Granite Mountain." 

" What is the Granite Mountain ?" I asked. 

" It is a silver mine." 

" Good for anything ?" I asked. 

" It has paid $3,000,000 in dividends," he said. 

Then we both went on peeling pears, and I tried to conceal my sensations. I 
always did hate to show astonishment when I felt it. 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDF.RLAND. AS- 

Suddenly Bolter, helping himself to another pear, remarked : 

" I wonder if you are a good collector of information ?" 

" Well," I said, " I am no reporter." 

"Interested in horses ?" said he. 

*' Of course," said I. 

" I suppose you know, then, that the best race-track in the West is at Ana- 
conda?" I had to confess that I knew nothing of thcsort. 

" It is a magnificent track," he went on enthusiastically, " neither too hard 
nor too soft, and horses find the latitude so well adapted to them that it is 
nothing uncommon for a good horse to beat its record here. Another thing 
that you may or may not know is that Montana horses are beginning to make 
a reputation for themselves. I am glad to be able to tell you that there are a 
number of large horse ranches, where Kentucky trotting stallions and English 
and Norman draft stallions are used for breeding with native mares. The 
breeding of fine horses is becoming a rem.unerative industry in the Ter — State, I 
mean. The August meetings at Anaconda are becoming famous ; it is a sort 
of western Monmouth Park, in short. Last year there were sixty good horses 
entered, and it goes without saying that money was used freely enough;" and 
here he relapsed into a learned genealogical dissertation of a horsy nature, in 
which I was not able to follow him. 

Still being in a speculative mood, we stopped at Missoula. 

" I have heard of people," said my friend, " who followed summer round the 
earth. I am following the ever-engaging ' boom.' " 

Now, a boom is associated to me with more or less discomfort, and when I 
saw the placid and hill-shielded town of Missoula, with its pleasant country 
homes, its broad streets and shaded yards, I could hardly believe it to be suffering 
from that peculiar form of commercial fever known to the western man by the 
uneuphonious name of "boom," and I found out later that in a sense I was right, 
for Missoula depends upon no fictitious values or unstable prosperity; for Mis- 
■ soula County lies in the midst of rich valleys, from which she will derive an ever- 
increasing strength. The Valley of the Bitter Root, over eighty miles long, the 
Jocko and Missoula Valleys, and many acres of fertile plains, are adjacent to 
Missoula, and at least seven rivers and creeks are in the immediate vicinity. 
Nothing richer or more beautiful than the Bitter Root Valley can be imagined, 
stretchmg out, as it does, between two lines of protecting mountains. Cherries, 
pears, quinces, apricots, grapes, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries grow 
thereto an unusual size, and have a flavor that is counted superior to that of the 
fruits of the Coast. So beautiful and so plenteous is this valley that were it not 
renowned for its productiveness, it certainly would be for its picturesqueness. 

The Northern Pacific has under construction a branch line running from 
Missoula to connect at Mullan with its Coeur d'Alene system. This will give 
the Coeur d'Alene country direct outlet to the smelter at Helena, and incident- 
ally will, of course, be of much benefit to Missoula. 




fM) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 45- 

Two branch roads already leave Missoula, so that it is rapidly becoming 
commercially what it has ever been naturally, the center of the surrounding 
country. The richness of the district supplied by this ambitious town can be 
determined by the trade done in the village, and when it is stated that one 
merchandise company alone has a trade of over a million and a half a year, and 
finds market for everything from a bar of soap to the rarest imported laces, 
some idea of the financial condition of the country can be forhied. Though the 
dwellings are of the sort commonly referred to as country houses, the business 
blocks, especially those in process of construction, are of metropolitan appear- 
ance, and represent an outlay that is the best guarantee of the town's prosperity. 
A garrison of United States troops is stationed at Fort Missoula. In the town is 
the Western Sanitarium of the Northern Pacific Beneficial Association, a com- 
modious and well-eqiiipped hospital for injured and sick employes. At present 
the town has a population of over 3,000. 

After leaving Missoula, one sees the numerous buildings of the Flat Head 
Indian Reservation, where a Catholic mission exercises its kindly influence 
over two tribes of Indians and a large number of half-breeds. In the fruitful 
valley which it occupies irrigation is not needed, and the Reservation is noted for 
its picturesque cascades, lakes, and creeks. It is delightful to sit quietly, with- 
out the diversion of book or cigar, and, looking through the windows, watch the 
changing scenery of this region. Now one gets a bit of brown and mellow 
table-land, over which the buffalo used to roam; now one crosses a bridge high 
above some clear stream, or looks down the long vista of a valley beautified 
with mists and set in an amphitheatre of trees. Sometimes the track is blasted 
from solid rock, again it skirts the edge of a pellucid lake, or runs upon the 
edge of a precipitous hill. The place has the reputation for an abundance of 
game — which made me wonder at what point I was most likely to again meet 
with my friend m corduroy. 

Once well over the Divide and on the western slope of the mountains, one 
becomes conscious of a milder atmosphere. The early morning air is tempered 
with something like balminess, and even at night, and in a high altitude, one is 
surprised to find that there is no need for shivering, although the month be 
September. It was my intention to visit the Coeur d'Alene Mountains — or 
rather the mines of that name — which lie in Idaho; but finding that they could be 
more conveniently reached from Spokane Falls than from any other point in the 
Territory of Idaho, I determined to delay my visit to that portion of country. 
My brief ride across the Territory is therefore principally associated in my mind 
with Lake Pend d'Oreille. For miles I had been looking at the tumultuous 
beauty of Clark's Fork, where it dashes its way through fluted chasms of rock, 
or tumbles over rocky beds in bright and exultant cascades. To leave this 
scene and come suddenly upon Lake Pend d'Oreille produces an entire revul- 
sion of feeling. One has been all tumult, action, spontaneity; the other is the 
very embodiment of placidity. The forests that surround it seem interminable,. 



46 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

and offer a thousand unexpected retreats and shelters in their secluded and 
beautiful bays. Mining camps and saw-mills furnish the evidences of mdustry. 
North of this, near the international luie, lies one of the finest hunting terri- 
tories on the American Continent. 

We hastened on through the pleasant towns; through Hope,. which has out- 
grown its appellation of a hunting resort; through Kootenai, from which roads run 
back into the Galena Mines on the Kootenai River; through Rathdrum, which is 
the center of a good cattle and timber country, to Hauser Junction, from which 
the Spokane Falls & Idaho Railroad diverges; this runs to Coeur d'Alene City. 
The 500 inhabitants of this town maybe accounted especially fortunate in their 
selection of a town site, for it hangs over the lake of the same name, and has 
an exquisite picture spread before it continually. In every direction stretch the 
purple mountains of the Bitter Root and Coeur d'Alene ranges, and adjoining 
the town is Fort Sherman, upon Lake Coeur d'Alene, at an elevation that adds 
to its delights in times of peace as it would to its effectiveness in time of 
war. I doubt if there is a military post in the country so beautifully situated. 
Steamboats run from Coeur d'Alene City up the lake and river of the same name 
to Mission, where I learned that they connect with trains running to Wardner, 
Wallace, and Mullan, which are among the richest mining towns of the district. 
A connecting line is being constructed by the Northern Pacific, which will do 
away with the need for steamboat transportation, except in the event of open- 
ing up the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, a portion of which Congress has 
arranged to purchase. Should this occur, a rich agricultural and mining coun- 
try, on both sides of the lake and river, will be thrown open to settlers. 

Had I followed my inclination, I should have left the main road at Hauser 
Junction, and taken the alluring ride up the lake and river which was so vividly 
described to me by a fellow passenger. I was in great danger here of losing 
my speculative friend, who was fascinated by the tales of wealth in these mount- 
ains, and I should have been glad to have visited the old mission church, which, 
they told me, presents a chaste fagade of the Italian style, built under the direc- 
tion of the venerable Father Ravalli, although his Indian workmen had nothing 
but axes and whip-saws with which to construct it. 

At Wardner, Burke, and Mullan there has been a wonderful development of 
silver that has quite overshadowed the original camp that made the Coeur d'Alene 
country famous. That original camp was at Murray, and the mining, as every- 
one knows, was placer gold mining. I remember, in this connection, hearing 
that, twelve or fourteen years ago, Butte was known only as a placer camp, even 
as the Coeur d'Alene country was known as a placer region through the original 
discoveries on Pritchard's Creek. It is the opinion of experienced miners — so 
my speculative friend declared with excited gestures — that the camps at Wardner, 
Burke, and Mullan will rival if not excel anything of the kind in the world. 
The stores of ore are so numerous as to be practically inexhaustible; and the 
probable completion next year of the Northern Pacific's line between Mullan 



A JOURNEY THROUdU WONDERLAND. 47 

and Missoula, already referred to, will give new interest to the development of 
this remarkable region. 

The mining camps of the Coeur d'Alene district contain about 20,000 people. 
A strange place and a strange people ! I should say that they were all intoxi- 
cated with success. There is gold in the very air. One feels rich whether he 
has a cent in his pocket or not. It is as impossible to be slow or dull in a place 
like this, as it is to be dry when one is up to one's neck in water. 

Full of new and pleasant enthusiasm, I entered Spokane Falls. It was still 
in the chaos that followed the great fire. The streets were blockaded with 
building materials. The directory was valueless. Ona-half of the business 
portion of the town was still in tents, and one of the leading churches had been 
pressed into the government service and was used as a post-office. 1 had 
difficulty in finding a place in which to lay my head, for all the hotels having 
been burned, the boarding-houses were crowded with the army of workmen, 
business-men, and sight-seers who had been drawn to the place. 

I do not feel that I have a very clear idea of what Spokane Falls was before 
the catastrophe, or what it may be in the future; I only know that I came away 
fascinated with the fortitude, the optimism, and the energy which could so 
quickly build up a new city on the spot of a. deserted one, and do it, too, in a 
manner that seemed to imply that the builders were gratified by having some 
obstacle to overcome, and that they measured success only by the difficulties 
encountered. Like Monte Cristo, the people of Spokane Falls appeared to 
think that "■ the world was theirs." With magnificent anticipations, they had laid 
out lots far over the swelling spruce-clad hills that stretched beyond the town. 
A cable-car line runs on a substantial double bridge across a picturesque ravine, 
and into this same uninhabited and most picturesque and desirable country. 

But to return to the city itself ; its strength lies in the Falls. The'^e built 
a village long before the railroad came into the countr3^ They have been 
estimated at 216,000 horse-power. The town rises gradually from the bank of 
the Spokane River until it reaches a line of bluffs, which are nearly a mile from 
the shore; then northward stretches a level plain, and here the best part of the 
Sta'ie stands. But around the Falls centers the interest of the commercial man 
and the tourist alike. The waters have three different paths for themselves, 
and they come pouring over the ledges with a force mighty enough to work all 
the looms, the spindles, the grinders, and the engines that are needed for the 
city. Saw-mills and flour-mills, sash and door factories, fence works, carriage 
works, an oatmeal mill, a pottery, and the cable-car power-house already cluster 
around them. 

Spokane Falls is by far the most important railroad center in Eastern 
Washington. The Spokane Falls & Idaho reaches into the Coeur d'Alene 
country; the Spokane & Palouse runs into the famous Palouse wheat region, 
its ultimate destination being Lewiston ; and the Spokane Falls & Northern 
taps the Colville Valley, which also has a wide reputation for a heavy yield of 




(48) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 49 

wheat and small grains. But what can one write of a city in the condition of 
Spokane Falls ? Everything is in a state of transition. The town has many 
beautiful residences, and they are daily being added to. Work has been begun 
on a $300,000 opera-house, and several excellent hotels are in process of con- 
struction. The water-works system of the city is capable of supplying 12,000,000 
gallons daily; and the machmery of these extensive works is also run by the 
water-power. 

It was at Spokane Falls that I received a shock. I was standing near the 
Falls, looking at the rapidly rising walls of the new hotel — a hotel which is to be 
erected at a cost of $250,000 — when suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. 
A man stood beside me in blue-jean overalls and a knitted jersey. 

" Not out of a job, are you, pard ?" he said. 

"Why no," I said, "I am not." 

" Thought you was," says he, " seein' you stand 'round." 

Evidently I was the only idle man in Spokane. But up to this time I had 
supposed my faultless costume would protect me from such suspicion. Imagine 
my surprise, then, when I paused in my wild career for information to take an 
inventory, so to speak, of myself. My boots were covered with mud, my silk 
hat had given place to an ounce hat, which was decorated with the dust of 
several States and Territories. I had caught the admiration for the flannel shirt 
which seems to possess men of all stations in the West, and my elaborately 
knotted tie had given way to a convenient loop of silk. The coat which I 
used to wear ceremoniously buttoned now flapped in the wind, and there was 
something in the atmosphere which made me feel that I no longer had time to 
draw on and button any of the numerous pairs of gloves which I had selected, 
before my departure, with so much care. 

" How many men are there of you engaged in putting this city together 
again ?" I asked my new acquaintance. 

"There are 3,500 of us," he said, " if there is a man; we call ourselves the 
'Boys in Blue,'" he said, slapping one blue-jean leg, "and before the year is 
over we'll have put $4,000,000 w-orth of brick and mortar together." 

I saw next to nothing of my speculative friend, Mr. Bolter, during my 
so'ourn at Spokane Falls. He was engaged in a search for corner lots, com- 
pared to which Sir Galahad's search for the Holy Grail was as nothing in its 
devotion. 

"What do you find on the hills ?" Mr. Bolter cried to me, as we ate our 
early breakfast together. " Yellow pine, cedar, tamarack, and white pine ! Mag- 
nificent woods, every one of them, sir. And what do you get in rivers ? — 
the finest water-power in the world. Look at the population of 22,000 — in 18S3 
there were only 800 people here. At that ratio, in the next three yeai's this will 
be a city of 75,000. Thea think of the mining districts! There is Coeur 
d'Alene, the Colville, the Kootenai, and the Okanogan, all directly tributary to 
the town. Not old mining districts worked out, mind you, but fresh fields, 



50 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

which only need capital and eneigy to develop them ; and it is the very home 
of enterprise, sir. At this minute, there are three new churches going up, not 
one of which will cost less than $30,000. The Northern Pacific are putting up 
a fine passenger depot. Everything is humming here, sir. There is good blood 
here, sir — good newspapers, good water — good everything. I have just clipped 
a statement from that very excellent paper, the Spokane Falls Revinv, to the effect 
that the Northern Pacific is by 425 miles the shortest line from Chicago and 
the East to Spokane. This has been recently added to by the Little Falls Cut- 
off, which is newly completed. Don't you dare to leave this town without 
appreciating it." I am sure I did not; no one could. 

But instead of taking th'e main trunk of that road, for which Mr. Bolter had 
so sincere an admiration, I determined to journey down into the famous Palouse 
country. I have no pleasanter associations with any part of my journey than 
with those long and careless days that I spent driving from point to point 
over these hills. The Palouse Valley contains a hundred valleys, at this 
season of the year golden with ripe grain. I had laughed when they told 
me that wheat in the Palouse Valley averaged from thirty to forty bushels 
an acre; but one ceases to disbelieve, in looking at these tremendous fields of 
grain, in which a man might without difficulty lose his way. The towns in the 
Palouse Valley center around the elevators where the wheat is kept; the rail- 
roads are built to carry away the wheat; the roads are lined with the intermin- 
able fields of plenty. I was surprised at the small number of granaries that I 
saw, and learned that it was the custom to sell the grain before winter, packing 
it from the nearest station in bags. I shall always remember my journey 
through this land of plenty. One can tire of awing mountain views, and 
find in the placid undulations of wholesome plains a comfort and a rest. I 
might have returned to Cheney, the prosperous junction, which has a record 
of wheat shipments amounting to $100,000 a year, but I chose to economize 
time and space by taking a cross-country line, which returned me to the 
Northern Pacific at Connell. 

How could I marvel now at the recuperative power and the apparent wealth 
of Spokane Falls? What the Palouse country was, I had seen. What the Big 
Bend country, tributary to it from the other direction, was, I had heard. This 
country, embraced by the Columbia, sends down wheat scarcely inferior to the 
Palouse region. Grasses, vegetables, and small fruits grow there to a degree, 
but wheat, as in the Palouse country, is the chief product. Stock-raising, how- 
ever, which is enterprisingly carried on in the Big Bend country, is not known 
in the Palouse district. Beef-cattle sell, in this district, for from $30 to 
$40 per head; a team of horses for $200; and the capricious but invalu- 
able cayuse, for from $5 to $30; and this leads me to say, parenthetically, that 
the cayuse is the least appreciated of animals. . It is true that it is necessary 
to become in sympathy with the cayuse, but when once he has been persuaded 
that he is carrying a perfectly respectable member of society, and one interested 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 51 

in the future of the country, there is no limit to the number of miles that he 
will patiently and safely carry him. 

As I journeyed westward, I met with a phenomena. If I innocently picked 
up a picture floating about on a platform or hanging from a peg, I was advised 
in scarlet letters to "keep my eye on Pasco." Every traveling-man on the 
road supplemented his "good morning " with an inquiry as to whether or not I 
was keeping my eye on Pasco. Therefore, as we approached Pasco, I delayed 
my meal, notwithstanding the vigorous appetite, for the purpose of doing as 
directed. I found Pasco the point of divergence for the Cascade Division of 
the Northern Pacific Railroad; in other words, here the two lines, coming 
from Portland and Tacoma, meet. A great man had prophesied that this would 
be the point of a future city, and here the young city was, not out of swaddling- 
clothes yet, but a most precocious and healthy infant, with a well-developed 
pair of lungs, and its outreaching hand on the first rung of the ladder of fame. 

Shortly after this we passed, in the deepening dusk, the great bridge that 
spans Snake River, the construction of which would have been gratifying to the 
appreciative eye of my friend Bolter, had he been with me. Hunt's Junction — 
to follow up the road, as Bolter would have me — is the connecting point with 
the Northern Pacific of two lines of the Oregon cS: Washington Railroad, both 
of which traverse the wheat country, one extending to Walla Walla, Waitsburg, 
and Dayton, Washington, and the other to Pendleton, Oregon, all points of com- 
mercial importance, Walla Walla being a city of 5,000 or 6,000 people, and of 
some historic renown. Occasionally tourists go to Portland via Wallula Junc- 
tion and the Columbia River line, but as the views along the Columbia can best 
be seen from the river — as I myself found out later — the majority of the sight- 
seers go direct to Portland by way of the Cascade Division of the Northern 
Pacific, making the journey along the Columbia River from Portland by boat 
as far as the Dalles, returning by rail to Portland. This is a journey that occu- 
pies but a day. Hunt's Junction is, I believe, important, not only because of 
its facilities for accommodating travelers who wish to reach the Columbia 
River towns, but also because the Hunt lines tap the very heart of Eastern 
Washington, and deliver to the Northern Pacific Road, at the junction, a very 
large portion of the wheat production of the district referred to. This wheat is 
carried by the Northern Pacific over its Cascade Division to Tacoma. I must 
say, parenthetically, that I am very proud of the way I now was able to collect 
facts, and I felt that Bolter would have been proud of me if he had known about 
it. By the way, it was here that a depressed farmer informed me that crops in 
Walla Walla district had been poor — the poorest in the history of the countr}^ 
the average in wheat being only twenty bushels an acre. In short, Walla Walla 
would ship only 2,500,000 bushels of wheat, and this, he estimated, would take 
4,534 freight cars, of fifteen tons capacity each, to move the wheat, and, if each 
of the two roads move fifty cars each day, two months of steady Vfork will be 
necessary to haul the grain. I may remark, incidentally, here, that later I 




(£2) 



A JOURNEY 'IHROUGH WON DKRLAN I). 53 

chanced to come across an estimate of the wheat crop of Washington for the 
year 1889. Six hundred thousand acres were planted, producing 10,000,000 
bushels, the worth of which is $6,500,000. 

I was in a good humor as I approached Yakima, for Yakima, so I had heard, 
was a very determined and pugilistic young city. When she wanted a thing, 
she wanted it bad enough to fight for it, and she even had the reputation of 
getting what she wanted. At present, she chanced to be wanting the legislative 
seat of the young State. She was going to be capital or nothing. 

It was as the train pulled into Yakima that I met with a young man who has 
since become one of my warmest friends. Permit me to refer to him as the 
Young Poet. I suspected his avocation at once, for, though the poets of the 
present day do not wear Byronic collars, or indulge in hyacinthine locks, the 
trade-marks are the same as they were in the early part of the century. His 
first remark to me confirmed ni)' suspicions. 

"This," said he, "is where the South and the North are married." I was 
not in a mood to be sympathetic, and I regarded this enthusiastic youth with a 
•cold stare. 

" Really," I said, " what may that mean ? " 

"It means," said he, "that the products of the North and of the South grow 
equally well in the Valley of the Yakima." 

"Oh," I said, "I suppose you mean to say they have sorghum and yams up 
here?" 

"Precisely," said he; "the tobacco-flower blooms here beside the bearded 
grain — I have written a few lines upon the subject." 

"Thank you," I said, " I should be delighted to hear them, but unfortun- 
ately I get off here." 

"Ah," cried he, joyfully, "so do I. Come with me, and we will go to the 
Hotel Yakima together, and as we go I will read you my 'Apostrophe' to the 
twelve valleys which pay tribute to the Yakima." 

By keeping up a supply of well-directed conversation, I managed to avert 
this evil, as we drove up the broad and tidy street of Yakima to the hospitable 
inn which bears the name of the town. But notwithstanding my utmost efforts 
to avoid the Young Poet, I found myself sitting opposite him at dinner, and, 
after completing my inspection of the menu, was obliged to peruse the follow- 
ing — a tribute to the young man's recently adopted town, and the principal 
river which flows through it: 

Brown are the hills by the Yakima, 

Brown throusfh the blue of the swathingf mist, 
And the sturdy points of the topmost peaks 

liy the clouds of the brooding sky are kist. 

Clear is the flow of the Yakima, 

And cold as the snows that feed its source, 
And wherever it flows through the wholesome plains, 

Unstintingly lends from its splendid force. 



54 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

It waters the waste, does the Yakima, 

And the desert bursts in bloom like the rose; 
It sings as it turns the miller's wheel, 

And it washes the gold from the dross as it flows. 

" I am the sorrowless Yakima," 

So sings the stream, while the ages run; 
" I am the servant of plenty and peace, 

Born of the love of the snow and the sun." 

Faithful and true is the Yakima, 

And broad is the valley it flows to bless, 
And the mountains drink in their cups of snow. 

An eternal toast to its deathiessness. 

This might have widened the breach between us, but I knew that I was not 
free from faults myself, and promised to be friends with him if he would not 
talk shop — poetry being, of course, the ** shop " of poets. 

" What I want to know about," I told him, " is the resources of the country. 
The Young Poet sniffed the air disdainfully. 

" I dare say the hotel clerk can instruct you," he said. But I went out and 
gathered information from other sources. I found that every preparation had 
been made there for a desirable city. On each side of the wide streets were 
planted rows of trees, and the mountain streams have been coaxed to run 
through ditches by the roadway. The population is about 2,500. It has 
tasteful churches, a remarkably imposing school building, sixty-five business 
houses, and two banks, each of which claim a daily deposit of $6,500. 

As to the natural resources of the country, I learned that the clay round 
about was so well adapted for brick-making that Yakima sported two large brick- 
yards; excellent anthracite coal had been discovered thirty-five miles west; in the 
northeast, only twenty-five miles distant, were gold and silver mines, and a stamp 
mill; and good horse ranches are in the vicinity. Although Yakima is surrounded 
with mountains, it is accessible by five convenient passes, of which the people of 
Yakima hope more than one railroad company will yet avail themselves. But 
the pride of Yakima is its irrigated farms. I drove out to the Moxee farm, 
about three miles from the village, where I saw an illustration of what can be 
done with these sage-brush lands, which look so repulsive to the eye of an 
eastern man. Here there are 2,000 acres under cultivation. Forty-five acres 
are laid out in hops, which produce 16,000 pounds to an acre. Two crops of 
wheat are raised a year, the spring wheat averaging thirty-five bushels to an 
acre, and one field yielding fifty. Five crops of alfalfa and five of clover are raised. 
Sorghum and peanuts, squashes, melons, and corn, grow in friendly juxtaposi- 
tion. The peaches of this district have as delicious a flavor as I ever tasted. 
But what surprised me most was the twenty-five acres of tobacco, and the great 
steaming-house where the leaves were prepared for use. A number of cigar- 
makers are employed, and before this beloved weed leaves the Moxee Valley it is 
made into three brands of cigars, which 1 do protest are as good as any 
domestic cigars that it has ever been my privilege to smoke. From 3,000 to 
4,000 head of stock are raised on the Moxee farm, and not far from there I 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 55 

visited the excellent dairy of Mr. Henry B. Scudder, who manufactures butter 
and cheese enough to satisfy the local market. Before long it is probable that 
systematic irrigation will be undertaken, thus putting in cultivation 500,000 
acres of land immediately around Yakima. The young orchards will also be 
greatly benefited by this, and in the near future the Yakima Basin may become 
one of the best fruit countries in the West. I was advised by the Young Poet 
to visit the Titan Basin, fifty miles southeast of Yakima, where, according to 
his description, exquisite falls break from glacial rivers into a green valley of 
wonderful loveliness. They told me, too, of the soda springs, where the people of 
Yakima resort in summer to breathe the air of the Pacific as it sweeps across the 
mountains; but I determined to hasten on, after having made elaborate notes in 
my memorandum-book concerning watermelons which weighed fifty-four pounds 
apiece, squashes which weighed eighty-six, sorghum which grew ten feet high, 
corn which went it one foot better, hop vines which presented solid clusters 
of fruit forty f.eet long, and oats which grew six feet high and rustled a bearded 
head two feet in length. 

A short journey of two hours' duration brings one to Ellensburg, a rival town, 
which is also ambitious to be the capital of the new State, in the stead of 
Olympia. This is a matter that will take two years, and several castings of 
ballots, to decide upon. Ellensburg has the advantage of Yakima in point of 
population; it claims 4,000, which is, perhaps, a modest estimate. The busi- 
ness portion of the town having been destroyed by fire, nearly a million and a 
half of property has been lost during the past year. 

But the wonderful buoyancy of the West is seen in this town, as in Spokane 
and Seattle. Ellensburg is rich in manufacturing interests for a town of its size, 
having one foundry, which supplies castings for many of the cities of Eastern 
Washington, three flouring-mills, three planing-mills, a sash and door factory, 
a galvanized-iron establishment, and the Falls of the Yakima River to furnish 
power. Public schools, hotels, and large office buildings are being erected 
with that rapidity which no longer surprises me; but it seems to be as natural 
to western enterprise as caution is to the business ventures of the city. 

There are two exceedingly prosperous banks here, which is not surprising, 
the town lying, as it does, in the midst of agricultural and mining country. 
Ellensburg hopes to be the junction point with the main line of the Central 
Washington Branch of the Northern Pacific, now building from Cheney through 
the Big Bend country toward the Columbia River. It is also probable that a 
branch will be thrown northward from this Central Washington Road toward 
Lakes Chelan and Okanogan. The natural advantages of this town can be 
judged by the fact that eight miles northeast lie rich bituminous coal mines, 
which furnish the same quality of coal as the famous Roslyn mines. Iron ore 
has been discovered in the northern part of the county, and on the Swauk 
River are placer mines, which require only water to make them pay well. There 
are 1,000 square miles of rich agricultural country, on which wheat averages 




(56) 



A JOURNEY THROVGTI WONDERLAND. 57 

thirty-five bushels to the acre, and not infrequently reaches extraordinary 
figures of from fifty to fifty-five bushels. Barley and oats yield from fifty-five to 
sixty-eight bushels per acre. Vegetables of all sorts grow abundantly, and 
potatoes have the reputation of being unrivaled. (Again I made annotations in 
my note-book concerning cabbages which weighed forty-six pounds, onions 
which measured twenty-one inches, and smelled to Heaven, and apples which 
no one but a Titan might undertake to bite.) 

The frost is over early in May, and begins about the first of October, no snow 
falling uhtil Christmas; but the impatient farmers feel that they are justified 
in plowing their fields early in February. The uplands are excellent for 
grazing; and from here the Sound derives nearly its entire supply of cattle. 
At one shipment, just before my visit, P^llensburg had forwarded 3,500 sheep to 
Tacoma and the surrounding towns. It is unnecessary to say that Ellensburg, 
Yakima, and all other towns mentioned and to be mentioned, are well supplied 
with newspapers, of various political faiths, and all devoted to the development 
of the Great West. We passed Clealum and Roslyn, two towns which subsist 
upon the famous coal mines bearing the name of the latter town, and reached 
the great tunnel of Stampede Pass. Nine thousand eight hundred and fifty 
feet is this tunnel, with a grade of thirty-nine feet to the mile. 

Joaquin Miller passed through here the other day, though in the opposite 
direction, and wrote something about it, which I chanced to pick up. Here it 
is, in the poet's peculiar phraseology : 

"About 500 miles of sun and snow, of sand and sage-brush, of burning 
desert and of bristling peaks, a variety of clime and of scene such as would 
not be encountered in the journey from London to Jerusalem, and the trouble 
is not what to say, as you look back over this long, swift dash from tide-water 
to the interior of this new State of Washington, but what not to say. 

" The first few hours out from Tacoma you are in a narrow path between 
impenetrable walls of moss-hung and overhanging trees. A dimple now and 
then to right or left, a little of a house and barn, a hop-field, a few fat cows 
belly-deep in grass and flowers, great thickets of grapes, wild and tame, a flash- 
ing trout-stream away down under the trellis or wooden bridge, and that is all 
you see or know of the thousands upon thousands of square miles that make 
up the great wood-world, Washington. 

"After a while we pull up, a rattle and a clank, the shout and puff and 
groan of our weary engine, and then two monstrous big creatures, two huge 
black engines, such as were never seen in the States, I reckon, come steaming 
out from the round-house; and we know there is heavy work on hand — we are 
about to climb the Oregon Sierras, and pierce their summits by the route of the 
great tunnel of the Northern Pacific Railroad, only recently completed. We 
pass one, two, five, ten, twenty great lumber mills; strings of oxen half a mile 
long; little armies of men with ax and saw and ox-whip. I tell you it is a busy 
place, this Washington wood-world! 

"Get land, get land, get land here — lumber land; for California, Nevada, the 
plains, all the. civilized world, wants lumber to build with." 

I subscribe a very excellent editorial which I found in the pages of the 



58 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

North- IVestern Magazine, and which describes, as well as anything I have seen, 
the condition of Seattle, to which I was now hastening, leaving the main road 
at Meeker: 

" The great fire of June 6th in Seattle was as terrible a calamity in proportion 
to the size of that city as was the historic Chicago fire; indeed, it was even 
more serious, for in Chicago a portion of the business district was saved, while 
in Seattle everything was destroyed except the residence quarters. The busi- 
ness streets were completely wiped out by the flames. Every hotel, every bank, 
every newspaper office, and every store was consumed. The wharves, depots, 
electric railway, cable line, warehouses, saw-mills, and factories, all shared in the 
ruin. In short, the entire business plant of a city of 25,000 inhabitants, con- 
structed by twenty years of enterprise, and representing a value of perhaps 
$20,000,000, was devoured in a few hours by the flames. 

"The citizens of Seattle are wonderfully cheerful in the face of this tremen- 
dous misfortune. In time their city will be the gainer by the fire, as Chicago was, 
for they will permit no buildings to be erected in the business district that are not 
reasonably safe. In their new plans for building they will doubtless banish all 
saw-mills and lumber-yards from the center of the city; will provide terminal 
grounds for railroads, the want of which has heretofore been seriously felt; and 
will secure a better wharf system than the old one, which had gradually expanded 
with the needs of a growing commerce. There is now a good opportunity for 
intelligently reshaping the commercial heart of the city, so as to give it facilities 
adequate for future demands. The losses fall heavily upon individuals, but the 
city itself is too vital not to recover from the blow. In two years there will be 
very few signs remaining in Seattle to tell of the great conflagration." 

Seattle slopes on a succession of terraces down to the exquisite harbor 
formed by the inreaching arm of Puget's Sound, surrounding the city on three 
sides. A little way back from the city, north, south, and east, stretch great 
valleys. King County, of which Seattle is the county-seat, is said to contain as 
much mineral wealth in iron and coal as the better part of Pennsylvania. Hops 
in King County yield 2,000 pounds to the acre,, and have been known to reach 
4,000 pounds. 

I did not know that I had an acquaintance among the 30,000 inhabitants of 
this beautiful city, but what was my surprise and delight to find in one of the 
most stirring young commercial gladiators of the place a distant kinsman of 
mine; but for his name, I certainly never should have recognized in this busi- 
ness-like and self-sufficient young gentleman the pale and scrawny youth who 
left New York five years before. This handsome young man was so pressed 
for time, that, though he was willing to show me everything in the city and be 
courteous to the utmost limit of his power, he would talk in nothing but broken 
sentences. 

"Come up to club," said he; "talk over things." 

We lunched there together in apartments which even an old New York club 



A JOURNKV THROUOII WONDERLAND. 59 

man like myself could find nothing to criticise; and as for the club-men them- 
selves, I thought I never had struck such candid, hospitable, energetic, and sen- 
sible a lot of fellows. They were college-bred and traveled, most of them; but 
they were not, as one of them put it, " traveling upon their shapes." In fact, I 
soon found out that men in Washington are taken for what they are, and not for 
what their fathers might have been. 

" Great place, Seattle," said my kinsman in jerks, as he cut his salad. 
" Never mean to leave it. Know what I was when I came out here? Office boy„ 
Swept out bank. All right now, though. President of bank and I went into 
partnership. Want to know real-estate transfers of Seattle, from January ist, 
1889, to September ist ? $10,443,661.50. All right now, you know. Don't 
sweep out office any more." 

After luncheon we went out to drive. We drove out to Lake Washington, 
as dainty a bit of liquid turquoise as was ever set in a band of hills. By Lake 
Union stands Queen Anne town, one of the fashionable suburbs, and up hill 
and down are the residences, the school-houses, the churches, of this ambitious 
town. T.o accommodate the transportation of this ambitious place, the North- 
ern Pacific Road has recently constructed a freight depot 750 feet in length. 

"Can't crush us with a $20,000,000 fire," said my kinsman. "Look at our 
wharves, will you. Ever see such coal bunkers ? We've four newspapers, and 
they're mighty good ones; we've three lines of electric cars and four cable 
lines. That foundation right there," he said, pointing to a structure that stood 
on a pleasant spot overlooking Elliot Bay, " is the Hotel Denny, going to cost 
$50,000." 

The day was intensely clear, the sky almost unbelievably blue; out on the 
bay glimmered the white sails, and not far distant, across the ferry, rose the 
green heights of West Seattle. The shining peaks of Mounts Tacoma, Baker, 
Adams, and St. Helens pierced the bright sky. I added to all this visible 
beauty the knowledge that I had of the country adjacent, of the mountain of 
iron, of the Snoqualmie Valley, which produces excellent hops, of the forests so 
dense that the country within a radius of forty miles of Seattle sends out one- 
half as much lumber annually as the States of Wisconsin and JNIichigan com- 
bined, and I concluded that this was a city any man might be proud to live in. 

On my way to Seattle I had passed through the Puyallup Valley in the 
night, and therefore I had little opportunity of seeing this famous region, I 
therefore lingered about Puyallup for several days. The hops were ripening, 
though not yet ready for harvest. Mile upon mile stretched the picturesque 
fields of hops, their graceful streamers reaching from pole to pole till one could 
imagine he saw a company of green-clad spirits of the fields engaged in some 
charming dance. It is sixteen years since the valley of the Puyallup was planted 
with hops, and during this entire time there has never been a failure of crops. 
In the autumn the Indians from the adjacent Reservation and from the coast 
come here by the thousand to gather the harvest. Indeed, afterward, far north- 




(60) 



A JOURNEY IHROUCiH WONDERLAXD. (Jl 

ward on my Alaskan journey, I saw fleets of long canoes laden with Alaskan 
Indians bound southward for Puyallup. 

The ride that brought me to Tacoma was a short one. 

It was early morning, and I went at once to that excellent hostelry, the 
" Tacoma." After breakfast, I sat out on the piazza overlooking the stretch of 
tide lands, and read two articles which had been given to me by my Seattle 
kinsman, in a fit of generous admiration for this rival town. The first was a 
description of the town by Joaquin Miller; the second, a bit of clever essay 
writing by that unfortunate young poet and novelist, Theodore Winthrop, who 
was one of the first victims of the Rebellion. Here is the letter from the " Poet 
of the Sierras: " 

" This is a red town — more red than Washington City, with her endless 
avenues of red brick and her continuous trees, which serve to emphasize the 
red with the contrasting green. The city is built of red brick, with limestone 
rock in the rough for a first story as a rule. But besides the red brick, the 
roofs of the houses are painted red; and as the city is on a hill, with the blue 
waters of the inland sea before her, and a crescent of dense green forest crowd- 
mg close around and closing in to right and left, why, you see, Tacoma is a 
tower and a battlement of red, brilliant by contrast with sky and sea and 
somber wilderness. 

"I told you in my last I should walk over this red city set on a hill, and 
count down in cold figures exactly the number of brick houses I should find in 
the course of construction. I counted something more than 200, when I was 
overtaken by the mayor of the city. I told him what I was about, and asked 
for figures and facts. As new ground is being broken daily, and in different 
parts of the place, I could not get quite what I desired without going over the 
entire town — a too considerable task with the streets in their present crowded 
and incomplete condition. But the official count of houses built the past year 
is a little over 1,000. This" is enough to show you that Tacoma is a fact, an 
impetuous and a formidable fact! 

" This youngest and strongest of all the young cities of the Union is ninety- 
eight miles by water road from the ocean, and about forty miles from the 
Pacific as the crow flies. 

" The cars creep along under her on the edge of the water, just as they do 
at Vicksburg. In fact, Tacoma looks not unlike Vicksburg before the war, if 
we leave out the color and activity. Her location is very much like that of 
Vicksburg, and the inland sea is not much wider than is the Mississippi at that 
point. But we are at the head of the sea here, or the ' Sound,' as it is called; 
and you do not see the passing steamers and rafts and flatboats, as when you 
look down from the heights of Vicksburg on the Father of Waters. Still there 
are plenty of ships, some of them from far away, from the under-world, 
waiting for wheat, hops, and lumber. A continuous stream of coal is pouring 
out from this port now. The increase of exports of this place during this year 
over the year preceding already amounts to $3,000,000. 

" I find eight banks here; and the school-house, college, and church, as is 
usually the case where the American pioneer plants the banner of progress, are 
even more conspicuous than the money centers. Down out of the semi-environ- 
ment of dense forests there come continually from five different directions the 
long and laden strintrs of cars. And I never saw cars so crowded. 



62 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

"'You must telegraph ahead for rooms.' 

" 'What! and twenty-two hotels in Tacoma?' 

•• I did not telegraph. I have slept under the trees too often to resort to 
the foppish and affected custom of taking too much care of self, as do many- 
worthless Americans. And so, after tramping about the town for a long time, 
grip-bag in hand, I was about to set out for the nearest woods,- where I saw a 
forest fire in full glory, when a stranger kindly volunteered to give me shelter. 

" But among the many edifices in the course of construction there are hotels 
enough, let it be hoped, to care for all who come in the near future. And 
while on this subject, let me say that the food is abundant here; not only is it 
abundant, but it is well cooked and well served. And for fear that I have given 
the broad impression that this is a sort of mining camp, so far as comfort is 
concerned, I must write it down that now, as the laden steamer has sailed away 
for Alaska and left room for me, I have secured quarters in a hotel so elegant 
that I am filled with astonishment at its perfection. You would mistake this 
airy red hostelry for a palace of the middle ages. Now, this is saying very 
much for a city so new that it continually smells of paint whichever way you 
pass as you walk the streets; but I know what I am about. The edifice is a 
copy from Ancona, I should say. At least, I am certain I have seen its airy red 
counterpart — its high, light gables, its tile imitations, its countless curves and 
turns of roof and wall and corner — by the banks of th'e Adriatic Sea, or some- 
where along there, in and about Ancona or Ravenna. 

" These hotels are not crowded thus by those who are building the city. 
The strangers on the balconies that look out on the inland sea from this island 
of red are, as a rule, merely the better class of seaside loungers. I should say 
that the greater portion of those who fill the first-class houses here at this season 
of the year are the wealthier and healthier of the Newport and Long Branch 
people, who, with a bit of an eye to business in the way of land speculation, 
are merely taking a longer 'run' down to the seaside. Certain it is that I see 
the same quiet manners here, the same absence of care and business concern 
that marks the well-bred American at our famous sea resorts on the other side 
of the Republic. And I have met two men here whom I saw at Newport not 
many years ago." 

Less spectacular, but equally graphic, are the words in which Lieutenant 
Winthrop, more than a score of years ago, described the stately mountain 
which, even as I read his words, rose before me, flushing and shimmering under 
the morning sun, to bear witness to the truth of his eloquence. 

He is speaking of Mount Tacoma, and says: 

" The range continues dark and rough, and sometimes unmeaning to the eye, 
until it is relieved by Tacoma — zw4''^Regnier. * * * Kingly and alone stood 
this majesty, without any visible comrade or consort, though far to the north and 
south its brethren and sisters dominated their realms, each in isolated sover- 
eignty, rising above the pine-darkened sierra cf the Cascade Mountains; above 
the stern chasm where the Columbia — Achilles of rivers — sweeps, short-lived 
and jubilant, to the sea; above the lovely vales of the Willamette and Umpqua. 
Of all the peaks from California to Fraser River, this one before me was 
royalest. Mount Regnier, Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature, 
perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody. More melodiously, the 
Siwashes call it Tacoma. ****** 

'• No foot of man had ever trampled those pure snows. It was a virginal 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 



63 



mountain, distant from the possibility of human approach and human mquisi- 
tiveness as a marble goddess is from human loves. Yet there was nothmg 
unsympathetic in its isolation, or despotic in its distant majesty. But t his serene 
loftiness was no home for any deity of those that men create. Only the 
thought of eternal peace arose from this heaven-upbearing monument, like 
incense, and, overflowing, filled the world with deep and holy calm. Wlier- 
ever the mountain turned its cheek toward the sun, many fair and smiling 
dimples appeared, and along soft curves of snow lines of shadow drew 
tracery fair as the blue veins on a child's temple. Without the infinite sweet- 
ness and charm of this kindly changefulness of form and color, there might 
have been oppressive awe in the presence of this transcendent glory against 
the solemn blue of noon. Grace played over the surface of majesty, as a drift 
of rose leaves wavers in the air before the grandeur of a storm. Loveliness was 
sprinkled, like a boon of blossoms, upon sublimity. 

" Studying the light and the majesty of Tacoma, there passed from it, and 
entered intolny being— to dwell there evermore, by the side of many such— a 
thoucrht and an image of solemn beauty, which I could thenceforth evoke 
whenliver in the world I must have peace, or die. For such emotion, years of 
pilgrimage were worthily spent." 

With these words still in my brain, I went out to walk about the " red 
city." Through the busy streets I went, wondering if indeed I were in that 
young town whose name a short time before had been unknown to me; for I 
should have had no difficulty in fancying myself on the streets of some old and 
long-prosperous city, except for the restless force that seemed to animate 
everyone. On one corner stood a great " red " building, with a stately 
tower— the new opera-house; on another, a granite business block— indeed, 
they were on every side— half-finished edifices, rising in comely substantiality 
among those which, already completed, give to the streets of Tacoma their 
metropolitan appearance. Someone told me that $100,000 was being expended 
on that beautiful opera-house building. I went past the wharves, on up 
toward the hill. No one could help stopping there for a while, if only to 
look over that stretch of limpid water. But, besides the bay, there were 
the ships from a dozen lands, flying their flags m the bright morning air. 
Afterward, when I learned that the wheat shipments of Tacoma for the year 
1889 were little short of 6,000,000 bushels, I was not astonished— for is not 
Tacoma the greatest port for the shipmeat of wheat in the world? Then the 
great coal bunkers still growing with the passing of the season— in which 
$57,000 have been spent— spoke of another source of wealth. The flag of Japan 
waved out there in the harbor by the side of a ,vessel from Baltimore, which 
had made its way round the dreaded Horn. Here were the evidences of wealth 
and prosperity before my eyes! I walked on up the hill, refusing to take the 
steam motors that rushed by me, and thinking of all that these western men had 
to be proud of. Here, on the hill, stood the fairest homes that I had ever seen. 
It was not that they represented an outlay of more money, although many of 
them were costlv, but they stood, so daintily fashioned in the latest caprice of 
fashionable architecture, in scenes so calculated to set off their picturesqueness, 




(64) 



A JOURNEY THROU(;H \V(JN DKK I.AM). (15 

that the effect was something, taken as a whole, that I had never seen excelled. 
The fir-clad hills stretched far beyond. The bay lay shimmering in perennial 
blueness below. The vine-draped bluffs dropped down to them, and to the 
ships at anchor. And in among gardens and lawns stood the homes of Tacoma, 
well kept, verandahed, hospitable, among churches and schools and pleasant 
drives. It was then that I recollected the letter given me by the old judge, 
back in St. Paul, to his son. The recollection was prompted, I suppose, by a 
desire to enter one of those gracious dwellings. I determined to present it at 
once. 

1 found the young attorney without difficulty. He was a blonde gentleman, 
not yet past twenty-five winters, clad in the lightest and neatest of garments. 
Indeed, his whole appearance betokened amiability. The smile with which he 
greeted me, the very color of his garments, the elegance of his red gold mous- 
tache, all added to the impression. We talked at length of Tacoma and its 
prospects. 

" Tacoma," said he, flipping a bit of dust from his polished boot, " has 
every reason for succeeding, and none for doing otherwise. This year the 
Northern Pacific will expend $880,000 in improvements here, which is only a 
small part of the-money they stand pledged to expend for the city; $30,000 per 
month are now being expended ni the way of grading streets and laying side- 
walks; $600,000 will be the sum total paid by the Tacoma Light & Water Com- 
pany on its system. The new smelting works are costing $200,000, and have a 
capacity of 150 tons of ore per day. The saw-mills — which you must visit 
with me — have an average output of 980,000 feet a day, the value of which is 
$3,500,000 per year. And we sell this in Australia, the Sandwich Islands, 
China, Japan, California, and the Mississippi Valley. But why bore you with 
these details.'' Tacoma speaks for herself; she needs no oration from me. Stay 
here a week, and you will never want to leave.'' 

Just at this moment a young lady entered. The sea-winds had been taking 
liberties with this young woman's hair, and it was blown in confusion all about 
the blue fore-and-after that she wore. Her dark blue mantle had the same 
wayward tendency, and her flannel blouse was confined at the neck by a most 
extraordinary tie of red. Though she walked with grace and modesty, she 
seemed to bring a breeziness into the room as soon as she entered. Even when 
she stood still and said nothing, she was so full of animal life that it made one 
eager for action simply to look at her. She looked so like the embodiment of 
the place, that I could hardly keep from addressing her as " Miss Tacoma." 
And imagine my astonishment at finding that this unconventional and frowsy 
young lady, with her imperious eyes, was the sister of my proper young friend 
— the daughter, in fact, to whom I had long ago refused to be introduced. I 
tried now to bring back some faint recollection of the state of mind that I must 
have been in to refuse a letter of introduction to a girl like this. I might have 
known Judge Curtis would have a nice girl. She had a little message to deliver 



66 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

to her brother, who cast a prim look of dissatisfaction at the general reckless- 
ness of her dress, and let her vanish without an introduction. Hiat was how I 
got punished for my churlishness back in St. Paul! But those things were in 
the days when I thought I had a broken heart. After all, it might be that I 
had only suffered a blessing in disguise. 

There was life out here in the West, that was evident. If all had gone well 
at home, I might still have been dully plodding in my office, ignorant of my 
country, and hampered by a hundred traditions. Now, at least, I was out of 
the rut, and I meant to stay out. And then, having arrived at this conclusion, 
I tried to lead the conversation up to the amusement for the evening, in the 
still nourished hope that I might be invited to spend it at the Curtis house. My 
efforts, however, were not successful. We drove in the afternoon to Old 
Tacoma, which was a hamlet when the new Tacoma lay hidden in blackberry 
bushes and the unguessed future. The town has an interest of its own. The 
modest houses nestle in among old trees, the gardens bloom, and everything 
speaks of ])atient and quiet living; and quaintest of all is the little Episcopal 

church, where — 

" More picturesque than chiseled stone, 
But wrought by nature's hand alone, 
A sylvan belfry stood. 

" A fir-tree's boll the shaft supplied, 
And nestling quaintly by its side, 

Behold the house of prayer; 
No symbol these of power ar.d pride, 
But emblems of the Crucified." 

Back again we drove, through a system of streets the existence of which I 
had not suspected in my morning's walk, all well built, and giving evidence of 
healthy growth. 

"What would you have here, that you have not got?" apostrophized my new 
friend, buttoning his immaculate driving-gloves, after we had taken a bottle of 
California wine together, in one of the comfortable restaurants. " The coal 
deposits of Puget Sound are the largest in the United States. This coal cokes 
in the best sort of shape. You know the value of that, of course. The iron 
deposits of the Cascade Range are enormous, and in time, with this coal adja- 
cent, with the harbor at our very door, with a railroad that crosses half the 
continent, we shall ship steel to all parts of the world. Do not look incredulous. 
It is possible. It is probable. Another thing that you may not know, is that 
the lime now worked on Puget Sound is the best on the Pacific Coast, and is 
in itself an enormous source of wealth. I tell you, it is a place that a man may 
be proud to work in. Stay here awhile, and you will agree with me.'" 

But it was not alone to oblige my young friend, Dick Curtis, that I stayed in 
Tacoma. For one thing, I was still waiting for him to ask me up to the house. 
Meanwhile, 1 looked very thoroughly into the claims for commercial greatness 
made by the city, and every day found myself growing in a desire to make this 
place my home. 



A JOURNKV IHROUGH WONDERLAND. 07 

Tacoma, situated as she is, in tlie midst of the finest ship-timber in the 
West, is without doubt an embryo sliip-building station. I spent several days 
in the lumbering regions, and returned to the city with the confirmed idea that 
better spars and keels never could be got out of any country. 

The population of the town was estimated by the most modest at 30,000, 
but this is a low estimate. As a matter of fact, in a town under the present 
conditions of Tacoma, growing every day of the week, and every week of the 
year, it is next to impossible to rightly calculate the population, and an estimate 
that would be correct one month would be erroneous the next. Tacoma has 
four national banks, one private one, a savings bank, two steam-motor railways, 
several horse railways, a college and a seminary, public schools sufficient to 
accommodate the children, churches of all denominations, an elegant club house, 
one of the finest hotels in the United States — "The Tacoma" — several other 
comfortable hotels, and it is the headquarters for the Western Division of the 
Northern Pacific Railroad, that road having a fine general-office building, and 
repair and car shops there. New and much larger car shops are now under 
construction, which, together with the new tracks, will represent improvements, 
during the year 1890, to the extent of nearly $1,000,000. 

I quote these facts to justify the enthusiasm which I felt over the town; for, 
in fact, I was delighted with the business of the place, and when I left it tem- 
porarily, to visit the State of Oregon, I did so under mental protest. Still, I 
wanted to do my duty by Portland and the Columbia. 

The Northern Pacific carried me, in a few hours, to the compact city on the 
Willamette. Two things are noticeable in this town — the next in size tD San 
Francisco, of the coast cities — first, the substantiality of the business blocks, 
and, second, the beauty of its residence sites. The streets are shaded with ash 
and maple, with horse-chestnut and elm trees; and, rising m luminous splendor 
to the skies, tower the mighty mountains of Jefferson, Hood, Adams, St. Helens, 
and Tacoma. As a great railroad center, Portland has advantages, united to 
those of being practically a sea-port, of which San Francisco has at times, 
so it is said, done the honor of being jealous. The Northern Pacific, the 
Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., and the Southern Pacific, all terminate here, 
and other local roads reach into the rich valleys of the State. I heard of the 
delights of the " Shasta Route" — otherwise the Southern Pacific — from a gentle- 
man who had just reached Portland by that line; and he assured me that the 
journey was one continuous pleasure, passing, as he did, through the head of 
the Sacramento Valley, past the towns of Sisson and Edgewood, with the peer- 
less Shasta in view, like some tender dream made visible; through Rogue 
River Valley, rich in gold and fruit; through the lands by the Umpqua and 
the Azalea rivers; through Eugene City, where the State University is situated; 
through Salem, a capital that reflects credit on its magnificent State; and then 
down that plenteous Valley of the Willamette, past Oregon City, to Portland. 

The Valley of the Willamette, with its countless fruits, its prune farms, 




(68) 



A JOURNEV THROUGIi WONUERLANJ). 69 

which are a source of great wealth, its wonderful yield of grains — wheat, rye, 
barley, oats, and timothy — its wool-growing, and its mines — gold by streams 
and in quartz, copper, galena, and zinc — its dairying and timber, would form 
sufficient basis for a prosperous city on the site of Portland. But when it is 
taken into consideration that Portland is a manufacturing town of such extent 
that in the year 1889 her output of manufactured goods was no less than 
$20,000,000, her future can not be questioned. The climate at this point is so 
mild that the roses bloom till January, and the year round the landscape is 
beautiful. The population of Portland is no less than 50,000, and the coming 
census will doubtless show it to be more. 

I took two short journeys during my stay in Portland. One was toward the 
mouth of the Columbia, to Astoria, which my great and enterprising towns- 
man made famous. Here, built on wharves, I saw the historic town, which did 
not, in truth, wear a historic look, but which was brisk and bustling, and full of 
hopes for a great future. The great river — or rivers, for one now journeys on 
the Willamette and now on the Columbia — wore a look of tenderest beauty. 
The shores were lined with mighty trees, slender, straight, and eternally green. 

" There grow the finest spars on the continent," said our captain, pointing 
to these shadowy forests, that stretched up beyond the beach over the misty 
hills. The islands that break the monotony of the land and fret the mighty 
current of the stream are said to be famous hunting-grounds, and, indeed, 
some of them are kept as preserves by t;he gentlemen of Portland. 

My other journey was up the Columbia to the Dalles. 

I felt aggrieved at having to take the steamer at 5 in the morning, but I 
summoned my fortitude, and reached the dock in the gray mist. I could see 
nothing but this blank wall of moist whiteness. It was dispiriting, to say the 
least; but I wrapped myself in my cloak, found a quiet place on deck, and sat 
shivering lest we should run into something. But suddenly, in the midst of 
this depression, a wonderful thing happened. I saw the whole curtain of mist 
become illuminated. It turned into a burning, billowing cloud of saffron, and 
then, like the uprolling of the curtain at a theatre, this glorified mist disappeared, 
mounting slowly, revealing first the shores, then the trees on the heights, then 
the far-off mountains, and finally the blue of heaven itself, as bright and as 
tender as the eye of a newly-awakened child. For the rest of the day there 
were no clouds. We passed, after twelve miles' ride, out of the Willamette into 
the green current of the Columbia. Pleasant pastures, rugged and fantastic 
heights, green and dewy dells, low nestling between the hills, and watered with 
crystal clear streams fed from the snows of the mountains, alternately delighted 
my eye. 

Fort Vancouver, passed soon after entering the Columbia, is an important 
military post. Washougal is a town suggestive of prosperity and happiness in 
spite of its name. Beyond it lie many rocks which have, in the local nomen- 
-clature, names as commonplace as they are inappropriate, and I am not w'illing 



70 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

to lower this exquisite panorama by repeating them. They show a lack of 
invention, of knowledge of euphony and of poetry, as do too many other 
sections m my beloved America. Now a great shaft shoots presumptuously 
up toward theclouds, and haughtily sees its reflection in the swift green roll of 
the Columbia. Now a series of ambitious terraces, looking like the dismantled 
garden of some Babylonian palace, bewilder the eye with their intricacies. Now 
a rich prune orchard suggests the plenty of the fruitful valley, and again a 
bright flash of down-falling water shows where a mountain current breaks 
over the heights, to swell the seaward-bound flood. Shall I stab such 
beauty with daggers in the form of names like " Rooster Rock," and "Table 
Rock ?" 

At Warrendale is one of those extensive salmon canneries which have made 
so large a part of the wealth of this district. This is in the midst of the stern- 
est scenery of the Columbia, where melancholy firs loom like hearse-plumes 
above the terrible grandeur of castellated precipices. 

Not far beyond lies the "portage," but it bears no resemblance to the 
" portages " of early days, when the intrepid and muscular voyageurs packed 
their canoes on their backs and bore them beyond the cascades to more placid 
waters. Here it is the passengers who are carried, on a narrow-gauge railway, 
with the tumultuous cascades in sight, where the river once more resumes its 
calmer way. At one point the river is lost sight of, while the train rushes 
through a grove of fir. When once more the river breaks on the view, it lies 
far below in a rocky chasm, through which it frets and fumes in unavailing 
wrath. The Dalles — the old trading-post which bears no insignificant part in 
the history of Oregon — lies near the mouth of the Klickitat, and five miles 
beyond are the terrific Dalles of the Columbia, where the waters rise far above 
their normal height in forcing their mad way through the gorge. 

I returned to Portland by rail, more to get a view of the Falls of Oneonta 
and Multnomah than for any other reason. The latter fall has a descent of 
820 feet sheer down in two majestic leaps over a lichen and moss covered 
mountain-side. The " Pillars of Hercules" make an impressive break in the 
landscape; the river winds majestically in among the hills, and furnishes sur- 
prises enough to keep even the conventional tourist from wearying. 

The annual State Fair was in progress when I returned to Portland, and I 
had the pleasure of visiting the neatest and most compact exposition building 
that I ever saw. Here were displayed those manufactures for which the town 
is distinguished, and the products of the rich lands adjacent to the Northern 
Pacific — Landreth wheat yielding from 40 to 60 bushels an acre; oats yieldmg 
from 75 to 100 bushels an acre; Chili Club wheat yielding 75; and timothy, 
barley, alfalfa of remarkable size and health. The only criticism I had to make 
upon the beautiful and thrifty town of Portland was the absence of any really 
elegant hotel; but I was consoled by the information that before another year 
had been ushered in, Portland would have one of the finest hotels in the world. 



A JOURNK.V THROIKUI \V()\ DKKLAND. 71 

known as the Hotel Portland. The walls of this structure already arose impos- 
ingly above the lesser buildings. 

Hearing that I had missed much in the way of beautiful scenery by travers- 
ing the road from Tacoma in the night, I determined to return in the day-time. 
I found that I was fully repaid for this determination. We were taken across 
the Columbia, at Kalama, on one of the largest transfer boats in the world, but 
so quietly that I could with difficulty believe that the transfer was being made, 
and I am sure that a good part of the passengers on this branch of the North- 
ern Pacific never know that they have crossed the Columbia, unless they chance 
to be assured of this fact by incontestable geographical evidence. We rode 
through wild forests, beyond which rose, now and then, some dazzling peak 
of snow. 

Now, my Alaskan trip lay before me. Yet Ivvas glad when I found that it 
would be several days before the northern-bound steamer was due, and that I 
could stay with a clear conscience in the " red town;" but the day for sailing 
came at last, and in the early morning, while the great mountain lay flushing 
under the morning sun, we sailed out of the harbor. The steamer carried 
nearly her complement of passengers. I looked among them with curiosity, 
not untempered with anxiety, to see if the companionship promised to be pleas- 
ant. It was all that could be desired — if one could judge by appearances — 
and suddenly, with a start, I saw before me the young lady with the wind-blown 
hair. Now I knew that I could make, m the most natural and friendly way, 
the acquaintance of Miss Curtis. 

And before night fell on those pleasant waters, I had done it. 

There was a time when Alaska seemed more remote than Terra del Fuego, 
and when the adventurer who returned from its shores was looked upon with 
little less curiosity and admiration than that still accorded to an explorer from 
Central Africa. And I myself thought of it as a tumultuous voyage, in which 
I was likely to suffer not a little, until such time as I should get my sea-legs 
on. Fancy, then, my relief at learning that our voyage would be almost entirely 
mland, through the intricate island passages, and that only at four places should 
we look out at the open Pacific. I learned, too, that the climate — which I 
expected to find most bitter, and productive of great discomfort to the man 
raised in temperate latitudes — was not so cold as much that I had become 
accustomed to in my native city, the thermometer seldom reaching as low as 
zero, even in midwinter, at Sitka. But I was assured by the officers that I had 
done well to bring plenty of my warmest wearing apparel, because of the chilly 
dampness that often accompanies the early morning and the evening. A 
cautious investigation of the steamer convinced me that she was all I would 
have, and that my apprehensions lest we should have a poorly appointed vessel 
for this northern journey were entirely without foundation, I had come on the 
steamer the night before, for the hour for sailing is at 4 in the morning, but 
not being yet used to the idea of actually going to Alaska, I was up at the hour 




(72) 



A J()i:knkv throuc^h wonderland. 73 

of sailing, and sat on deck wliile we made the three-hour journey to Seattle 
down the broad Sound. Port Townsend — "the Gate City of the Sound," as its 
people fondly call it — is the last American port touched at before entering 15rit- 
ish waters. Its population is about 5,000. To this are tributary the rich 
valleys of the Olympian Mountains. The Chinicum Valley is especially pro- 
ductive, the hops, grain, potatoes, and hay of that district commending them- 
selves — so 1 was informed by a Port Townsend man — particularly to the buyers 
in town. All the shipping for Puget Sound is, of necessity, the shipping of 
Port Townsend, since every vessel entering the Sound is obliged to stop there. 
The town is, in fact, being benefited by the rapid development of the West, 
and property in its limits has doubled in the last three years. Several manu- 
factories are now adding to the commercial prosperity of Port Townsend, and 
when to this is added easier access to the surrounding country, particularly to the 
iron deposits in the adjoining valleys, there will be no doubt of the future pros- 
perity of this, the most northerly port of the west coast of the United States. 

With Tacoma growing more cloud-like against the intense sky, and Mount 
Baker gradually brightening, we neared Victoria. 

Quaint and calm is Victoria. The tourist knows it well, or at least every 
year Victoria knows more of the tourist. It looks out on a dainty, land-locked 
bay which reaches in from the Strait Juan de Fuca. The place has a fine 
equipoise, and is neither disturbed nor disturbing. Its beauties do not com- 
mand — they implore — attention; and unless the visitor is inclined, he is not com- 
pelled to lift his eye above him, where the snow scintillates on the tops of the 
distant mountains; neither is he obliged to peer over the high fences into those 
exclusive English gardens for the pleasure of beholding flowers of tropical 
luxuriance; neither is he forced to take boat with the rest and row up to the 
gorge when the sun burns red in the west, and their rich banks gather to their 
dewy recess the shades of twiliglit; but he will do it if he stays, and if he has 
leisure he will certainly stay, for greater charms of mountain, stream, wood, and 
sea than Victoria has, whether for the sportsman, the artist, the idler or dreamer, 
are seldom found. Five miles distant lies Esquimalt, a British naval station, 
which is reached by a drive through woods thick with pine, spruce, arbutus, wild 
roses, and ferns. The dry-dock is a piece of masonry worthy the admiration of 
an American, who too seldom sees such things well executed in his own country. 

We were given permission by our most obliging captain to disembark here 
for a few hours. The courteous young managing-editor of the Colonist was my 
^uide through the town. He introduced me, among others, to John Fanning, 
hunter, taxidermist, and philosopher, who year by year swells the collection of 
native beasts and birds in the museum which stands among the other govern- 
ment buildings. These buildings, though not pretentious, are attractive and 
neat. The salmon furnishes one of the material sources of the financial growth 
of Victoria, 370,000 cases of salmon being shipped from the Fraser River alone, 
during the season of 1889. 



74 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

And now, at last, I was started on my way to Alaska. That dim, 
mysterious place about which I had so often dreamed was at last to become a 
reality. Already I fancied the wind blew more sharply from the north, and 
that the hills towering on each side gathered to themselves a sullen beauty, as 
if the melancholy spirit of the northern seas floated down to them. A spasm of 
homesickness came over me. But I had been sitting on the. east side of the 
deck, and now, to shake off the feeling of depression, I went to the other side. 
What a contrast was here from that dun picture on which I had been looking! 
Here was a glory of daffodil and azure in the west! The water responded with 
a harmony of similar but softened tints. And there, in the forecastle, stood 
Miss Curtis, wrapped in that enveloping mantle of blue, and frowning out at 
the dazzling light in the west, like an amateur Hamlet. 

It was then that I spoke to her. After that we took a mile turn on deck 
after every meal, and sat for hours watching the slow passage of those sad hills 
in their appealing beauty. She told me afterward that she felt quite safe in 
chatting with me, without fear of misunderstanding, because her brother had 
informed her that I was the victim of a hopeless passion, and much averse to 
women. It was on this account that her brother refrained from introducing 
us; he had supposed that it would be disagreeable to me! All thi-s came 
of mv having told the Judge, back in St. Paul, that I did not care to know 
women. 

There are a few things that all Alaskan tourists appear to have in common. 
These are fur rugs for the knees, novels of a mild sort, a furious desire to 
collect curios, and a total ignorance of Alaskan affairs. The collecting of 
curios began as early as Port Townsend, for there it was found the baskets of 
the Cape Flattery Indians were superior to anything seen by anyone anywhere. 
We all bought some, and asked each other the price of our respective purchases. 
And from that time on, whenever a purchase was made on the voyage, even by 
the most dignified member of the party, we all felt at liberty to ask what it cost, 
and all the conditions of sale. 

I can think of nothing more difficult than to try to systematize an account 
of this Alaskan trip. Its delights lie to so great an extent in the unexpected, 
and depend so much on the congeniality of the company, that I shall do justice 
to it in no respect if I merely write the names of the places we passed and the 
dull list of names of the places we visited. Fortunately, the vessel on which 
we sailed carried a great deal of freight, and our stops at places of interest 
were, therefore, longer than they otherwise would have been. 

The days were never monotonous. There was always something new — 
indeed, the whole thing was new. This succession of beautiful and dim 
islands, of exhaustless mountains, of flashing waterfalls, this fascinating change 
of tide and wind and sky, seemed to wrap us round with a sort of bewitchment 
from which we would not willingly free ourselves, although conscious of our 
thralldom. The visitor of the future, I am sure, will feel as we did, and, like us^ 



A JOXIRNKV IHKOUGH WON DKK l.AN 1). 75 

will care less for the names that these solitary bays and capes, these shadowy 
straits, lying between silent and untrodden mountains, . may bear, than for the 
beauty that they display. However, lest the absence of names may vex some- 
one desirous of information, the usual course of the ship will be found below, 
not so free from mistakes, perhaps, but that the critical captams of the steam- 
ships may find fault with it, but as nearly correct as a person utterly ignorant of 
nautical matters and the navigation of the northern seas can make it. 

After leaving Victoria, the steamer takes its way through the Gulf of Georgia, 
keeping Vancouver's Island on the west for 300 miles. Frequently, after 
passing through the archipelago, where islands lie in the blue liquid like jewels 
that crowd each other in some rich mosaic, the steamer stops at Nanaimo for 
coal. It then takes a northwesterly course, passing Taxada Island on the 
right. On this island is a large amount of iron ore, with a valuable percentage 
of phosphorus in its composition. Discovery Passage lies between Valdes and 
Vancouver's Island, where it winds tortuously between bluffs and headlands. 
The wider courses of Menzies Bay give way to Seymour Narrows, which bear a 
renown for hazard and for beauty. Even at low tide, the waters churn angrily 
here. At Chatham Point we amused ourselves by wondering how our vessel 
could pick out a road. When we were sure it would go to the right, it sud- 
denly turned to the left, and entered Johnston Strait. 

It used to be a favorite amusement with us to sit on deck making 
wagers of one sort and another as to which channel the vessel would pass in the 
perplexing intricacy of ways before us. How narrow and dim these channels 
used to look from a distance, and how they used to widen and brighten as we 
entered them! The thread-like falls of water would flash down the emerald.mount- 
ain-sides, the mists would seem to part to make way for us, till what a little while 
before had appeared to be a sea of shadows radiated with splendid colors and 
revealed vistas of luxurious greenness of coast and water, as warm and winning, 
I am sure, as anything that I should have seen had I taken that southern 
journey which my philosophic friend, the Frenchman, wished me to take. How 
I laughed now as I remembered the motive that brought me on this journey. 
Like the man who ceases to have the toothache as he approaches the 
dentist, so I had ceased to have the heartache as I prepared to take the 
remedy recommended by my friend — -who certainly knew all about broken 
hearts, if any man did; for I never knew a man who had had so many. 

But this is an inexcusable digression. I left off where we were riding 
through Johnston Strait — the white gulls wheeling round us, the fish leaping 
brightly in the water, the wind perfumed with balsamic scents — in the shade of 
the magnificent Prince of Wales range of mountains. The king of this tribe of 
mountains is the Albert Edward, on which the snows never entirely disappear, 
and which rises 6,968 feet above the sea. Thurlow and Hardwick islands are 
passed, and then the bay-indented shore of British Columbia is visible, and the 
ship enters the archipelago at the north of Johnston Strait. After this comes 
Broughton Strait, off from which shoots Alert Bay, with its salmon carmery. 




(76) 



A JOURN'EV THROUGH WONDERLAND. 77 

Then entering Queen Charlotte Sound, and passing Fort Rupert, a Hudson's 
Bay Company post, hastening for a brief time through Goletas Channel, with 
islands to right, left, before, and after, we leave Vancouver's Island behind, 
with its green Cape Commerell, and enter on that part of the Sound where the 
Pacific sweeps into the mainland. Here, for a short time, it is the custom of 
those of a retiring disposition to " seek the seclusion that the cabin grants." 
But these are few, for the trials of the Sound are not great, and the wise sit on 
deck and watch the long waves breaking on the distant shore, and the sun 
plunging behind the purple curtains of the west, leaving behind an evanescent 
mosaic of unnamed hues, to burn on the water. Mount Lemon looms on the 
eastern horizon, meanwhile. Four brief hours bring the ship into Fitzhugh 
Sound, under the shade of Calvert Island, where Mount Bu.\ton towers. Pass- 
ing the opening of Burke Canal, opposite the Hunter Islands, the steamer keeps 
on a straight course till it suddenly swings into Lama Passage, which presents 
something the shape of an open jack knife to the perplexed eye of the tourist. 
And here, on Campbell Island, nestles Bella Bella, with its church spires and 
its whitewashed cottages. This being the first sight of a native village, the 
tourist usually expects something more peculiar than he sees in this neat and 
inviting little village. It has such an air of cleanliness and prosperity that it 
loses in picturesqueness. 

" A certain amount of dirt and disorder is positively essential to picturesque- 
ness," said Miss Curtis. 

I could not help thinking, as I looked at her, that, although she was as 
dainty as a " rose newly washed in the dew," she illustrated the proposition 
to an extent; for she was never, by any circumstance, prim. I quoted to 
her Herrick's lines concerning " a sweet disorder in the dress," and she seemed 
to agree with his sentiments. 

I could not help wishing that I had my acquaintance, the poet of Yakima, 
with me as we entered Seaforth Channel, and I confess that I was impelled to 
write a few verses myself, which, from motives of caution, I refrain from repro- 
ducing. Here there are a hundred islands. Back of the pine and cedar clad 
hills rise peaks of snow or rugged mountain-tops, bare and bitter. Over these 
there hovers a pale gold haze, through which warm purple shadows play, till 
the whole looks like some tremulous dreamland cheating the eye with its rich 
fantasy. 

At Millbank Sound we once more saw the Pacific, and a little later, paths of 
ice marked the mountains with brilliant stripes of white, showing that we were 
reaching those snows perennial with which the name Alaska is principally 
associated in the mind of most persons. Finlayson Channel runs its narrow 
way between the mainland and Princess Royal Island. The shores rise proudly 
on each side to a height of 1,500 feet or more. Twenty-four miles brings the 
ship into Wright Sound through McKay reach. Then comes the peculiar 
Grenville Channel, which is as straight as a canal; then Arthur Passage, with 



78 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

mountainous islands guarding it on both sides. Through the majestic Chatham 
Sound, by the side of the Chim-sy-an Peninsula, past Dundas Island and its 
towering caps of snow, we cross the line that furnished an ineffectual battle cry 
to energetic patriots — "54-40 or fight." We are, in short, at the dividing lihe 
between British America and Alaska. 

"We are in Alaska!" cried Miss Curtis, dancing about on deck, and waving 
an anarchistical-looking scarf in the air. 

" And the question is," said a political misanthrope, who felt the anomalous 
condition of the " district " in a most personal way, " What is Alaska?" 

" I'll tell you what Alaska is," cried a citizen of Juneau, whom we were 
carrying back to his beloved camp; " it is the country for me. It has spoiled 
me for cities, and spoiled me for the States. I mean to stay up here, where I 
feel free. The wrongs of Alaska sound worse in Washington than they do 
here. We have what we want, and all sorts of legal recognition could not give 
us more." 

But the pessimist shook his head. He felt that Alaska was suffering from 
great injustice, and he meant to suffer with her. 

Still the question remained, " What is Alaska?" For one thing, Alaska is a 
country which, at the close of the year 1889, had compensated, by its revenue to 
the United States, for its purchase-money. In other words, the United States 
has taken as much money from that country as it spent in acquiring it. Alaska 
is a country with a coast line of 18,211 miles; its miles from east to west number 
2,200, and from north to south 1,400. Its great river, the Yukon, is navi- 
gable for 2,000 miles. Its climate on the coast is equable and moist. In 
the interior, the heats of summer and the colds of winter are exceedingly great, 
although, perhaps, they are not more so than many other interior regions in 
which people live in contented civilization. 

In the whole of Alaska there may be 3,000 white persons. There are 
certainly not more. The missionaries, the miners, the superintendents of 
the canneries, and the soldiers and sailors stationed at Sitka and interior points, 
make up this number. The number of native-born Alaskans approximates 
34,000. Of these, the Aleuts, who are partly civilized, the Creoles, who are 
part Russian, the Innuits, the Thlinkets, and the Hydahs are, beyond doubt, of 
Oriental origin. Their physiognomies are essentially Japanese, and their 
traditions point to the fact of their having come from a country warmer than 
their own, and containing cities and great buildings. The Tinneh race alone is 
supposed to be Indian, and to have come from the interior. None of the 
Alaskans, however, are treated by the United States Government as Indians, 
and they suffer none of the disabilities of American Indians. 

I am hardly willing to get ahead of my story by telling more of the Indians 
at this point. We became well acquainted with them and their habits before we 
left, and, perhaps, they can be best understood if introduced to the reader as 
they were to us. All along our journey, to the point at which we now were, the 
scene had been diversified by long bark canoes, filled with Indians, old and 



A JOURM'.V I'llRon;!! \V( )M)K.K1,A N I). 79 

young, male and female, bound toward the south and the hop-fiehls of the 
Puyallup. Sometimes not less than forty were crowded into these skillfully 
maneuvered and gracefully built craft. Even the waters of Venice have- not 
seen boats more graceful than these, fashioned by the natives of Alaska. The 
fore end of these boats has a bold upward sweep, not unlike that of a gondola, 
and often bears the figure of a fish or bird or beast carved on it with skill. 
With their bright turbans, their many-colored blankets, and their mysterious, 
dirty, but effective paraphernalia, these people presented an appearance most 
gratifying to the aesthetic eye, although it must be confessed that on close 
approach the perfume that emanated from the boats was not alluring, 

"You ask what Alaska needs," Miss Curtis used to say. " No doubt our 
political philanthropist thinks it needs representation. T think it needs cologne." 
To tell the truth, both were right. 

The riches of Alaska lie in its mines, its peltry, and its fish. Its vast tracts 
of timber look as if they might furnish fuel for the world. But on the coast 
the trees have not much commercial value, the trunks being covered with 
branches nearly to the ground, and the circumference being slight, although 
the height was goodly. Farther in the mterior, however, it is said that the 
yellow cedar, a tree most valuable for ship-building, grows to a height of from 
thirty to forty feet before branching. 

The development of the mineral wealth of Alaska is yet in its infancy. It 
may be as well at this point to give the results of such observations as I made, 
and w-hich cover the more important mines of the country, with the exception 
of the placer mines of the Yukon. 

The Treadwell mine, on Douglas Island, is the principal and most developed 
of Alaska mines. It is said that this mine pays its owners loo per cent, a 
month. Certainly, there is gold enough in sight to excite even the experienced 
miner. The stamp-mill has 240 stamps, and its product is 600 tons of ore each 
twenty-four hours. The process by which the precious metal is extracted is 
said to give an average of 85 per cent, of the entire richness of the ore. To 
save the other x 5 per cent, would demand a process more expensive than profitable 
when so great a profit is realized' from the rougher treatment. This stamp-mill 
is the largest in the world, and ceases not its labors by day or night. 

Adjoining the Treadwell mine is "The Bear's Nest," which was purchased 
by an English syndicate for a large sum. Its future is yet undecided. The 
popular impression has been that the lead of the Treadwell continued into 
this claim. East of and adjoining the Treadwell mine are those of the Eastern 
Alaska Mining and Milling Company, owned by Wisconsin men. This company 
has two claims, the "Mexico" and the "Belvidere," each 600 by 1,500 feet, and 
contiguous. A tunnel of 350 feet passes through 200 feet of milling rock of 
the same character as the Treadwell, of which the vein is a continuation. This 
company controls a stream which plunges down the mountain with sufficient 
velocity to run 800 stamps. 




DEVIL'S THUMB, ALASKA, 



(80) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. HI 

Behind Juneau rises a hill 3,000 feet in height, around whose base flows 
Gold Creek, a mountain stream having its rise amid glacial and snow mount- 
ains but a few miles distant. The stream runs through valleys and canons 
whose soil is the washing of the hills, and is rich in precious metals. Along 
the hillsides and in the valleys are many placer mines. This canal by the 
stream is known by the name of " The Silver Bow Basin." The many mount- 
ain streamlets greatly facilitate operations in this valley. Here the " Takou 
Consolidated Company " has a ten-stamp mill, and the "Webster " has a five- 
stamp mill. Behind a large adjoining butte, a Boston company has a claim of 
sands, rich in gold, for which an outlet has been built into the valley below. These 
sands give the most immediate return for labor and outlay. At the head of the 
valley of the Silver Bow Basin stands the ten-stamp mill of the Gold Mountain 
Mining Company, which possesses a claim 600 by 4,670 feet in extent. The 
result of a ten-ton shipment from this mine gave $150 per ton. In close prox- 
imity to the stamp-mill is a water-power sufficient to run 200 stamps. 

A mile and a half from the Silver Bow Basin is a parallel basin, in which 
have been discovered rich silver deposits. The " Silver Queen " lies near the top 
of a mountain, 1,300 feet above the beach. The shipments from this mine 
have been exceedingly rich. Were the mines of Juneau of less general interest 
to the public, an apology might be made for occupying space with specific infor- 
mation about them; but, without doubt, in Alaska lie the principal mining 
operations of the future. There are the gold and silver fields of the coming 
generations, and no information about them, however slight, can be amiss. 

The seal fisheries, which bring to the Government over 4 per cent, on the 
money paid for Alaska, have been leased for twenty years — beginning with 
1870 — to the Alaska Commercial Company, which pays the Government an 
annual rental of $55,000 for the islands, and $2.62-^ each on the 100,000 seals 
which are annually killed, according to contract. The salmon fisheries of 
Alaska are increasing annually, and there are no less than fourteen extensive 
salmon-packing companies between Tongas Narrows and Juneau. At Killi- 
snoo, on Admiralty Island, is the largest of the several whale fisheries. Her- 
ring and cod are also a large source of revenue. 

Having given the reader some idea of the resources of this country, it may 
be well to briefly mention the condition of the missions now in existence, which 
he will be in a position to visit. It will be remembered that to the far north 
lie other missions, both Russian and American; but these do not so directly 
interest the tourist to Sitka, as he will have no opportunity of seeing them. 

At Fort Wrangell there is a Government school and a Presbyterian church. 
The mission home for girls at Howcan has recently been burned, but will soon 
be rebuilt. Thirty girls are instructed at this school, and the church has a good 
attendance. At Douglas Island is a mission supported by the Friends Society. 
This is at present a home for girls; but, as the undertaking is in its infancy, 
it mav in time become a more general institution. A night school is also m 



82 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

existence. This is attended largely by the white miners, who attend in fort- 
nightly shifts — for, the Treadwell mine being worked by night as well as day, 
many of the rniners have nocturnal duties. 

At Juneau, a home is conducted in which there are twenty children. The 
utmost efforts are made here to establish friendly relations with the natives, 
especially among the women. The church accommodates 200 persons. 

At Sitka are four schools — the Presbyterian mission, which is a training 
school, the Government school, a Catholic school, and a Russian school. 
Fourteen missionaries attend to the numerous departments of the training 
school, and the pupils number 150, of which forty-six are girls. The training 
school is also a home, and most of the boys and girls live under the roof, 
although a few in the village of Sitka return at night to their homes. The boys 
are instructed in carpentering, shoemaking, cabinet-making, blacksmithing, 
and, to a limited extent, in iron-work. In the future, when the necessary appli- 
ances are obtained, iron-work will probably become one of the established 
branches of mechanical instruction. The girls are taught all branches of 
domestic work and sewing. The part of the training devoted to letters is 
excellently sustained. Mr. Sheldon Jackson, for many years general agent of 
education in Alaska, presides over the school and the church at Sitka, and living, 
as he does, in the home with the pupils of the school, exercises a direct influence 
•over them. Indeed, the habits of civilization are encouraged, even to the 
organization of a brass-band. 

To guard against any danger of the pupils relapsing into their former 
barbarous state, Mr. Jackson has started a system of guardianship which follows 
the pupils after they leave the home. He encourages marriage between the 
pupils of marriageable age, compels the young men to make the furniture for 
a home before he will give his consent to their wedding, and advances money 
for them to build a house near the mission. The house and the ground on 
which it stands are then paid for by the young people in annual installments. 
And, in cultivating the arts of Christendom, the Indians have not been advised 
to lay aside or neglect the arts in which they naturally excel. They are, in 
many respects, artists of originality and skill — particularly those of the Hydab 
race. They are hereditary fishers and hunters. They can dress a skin well, 
make baskets and boats of great beauty and durability, and relate weird tales 
with a graphic brevity that distinguishes the stories of all primitive people who 
have had to rely upon tradition, instead of literature, for the preservation of 
their legends, their history, and their genealogical chronicles. None of these 
accomplishments are depreciated by the wiser of the Christian teachers. 

Hospitals have been provided as an adjunct to the Sitka mission, in which 
all those taken ill, or suffering from any of the inherited diseases so prevalent 
among the Alaskans, are cared for by matrons who understand the particular 
needs of this class of patients. 

The mission of William Duncan, the distinguished English missionary, is 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 83 

■ one of the most notable instances in the history of missions of the work that 
can be accompHshecl by one man. He and his 1,200 converts to Christianity 
having, as is well known, been forced to leave British Columbia, have settled 
on Annette Island, about sixty miles north of the southern boundary of Alaska, 
and named their habitation Metlakahtla, after the home they left with so much 
regret, and with a heroism that might as fittingly be sung of and preached 
about as the pilgrimage of the Puritan fathers. A church, far from rude, 
excellent homes, a good school, workshops, and all the evidences of a thriving 
village, are the result of the toil of the Indians in their new home. The sys- 
tematic industry, the sense of honor, the growth and the demonstration of 
affection shown by these natives, is the result of the efforts of this one man, 
whose remarkable personality and sacrificial efforts will furnish one of the inter- 
esting chapters of the future history of the Northwest Coast. 

This, then, was the country we were entering — a country of incongruities. 
At the Arctic Circle, yet not Arctic; a savage country, yet filled with Christian 
influence; a country supposed to be ice-bound, but in reality wrapped in perennial 
greenness; a frontier in which there is no warfare; a wilderness of scenic splen- 
dor, where one leaves the shelter of a glacier larger than the whole of Switzerland 
to bask in the sunshine of calm seas on which a summer mist lightly hovers. 

As regards the agriculture of the country, there are various conflicting 
statements. Tubers are undoubtedly growji well, and the celery, the lettuce, 
the tomatoes, cabbage, turnips, and other table delicacies of a similar sort with 
which we were supplied on the boat, were from Alaskan gardens. Blue grass is 
being introduced on some of the islands, with a view to making pasturage suffi- 
cient to support cattle-ranches, and it is growing well. The coarse marshy grasses 
are liked very well by cattle, and, as these grow here in extensive quantities, the 
trial of cattle-raising is more likely to be a success. Wheat can be grown on 
many of the islands, but there is danger of early autumn rains, which prevent 
its being well cured. Nevertheless, the experiment has frequently been success- 
ful. It would, however, be inaccurate to say that it is not more hazardous than 
in the States and the wheat belt of British Columbia. But something of t,he 
surprises of the climate can be guessed at when I assure my readers that I 
never saw more exquisite roses than those growing in September at Sitka. 
They were such roses as we would have expected to have in New York Staie in 
June, but they had been in blossom from the early part of the summer, and 
were still full and stately and perfumed. By their side grew quantities of 
golden Californian poppies and beds of dark-eyed pansies, and chrysan- 
themums. The gardener will know by these flowers something of what can be 
grown in the vegetable bed. As yet, the experiments in agriculture in Alaska 
have been comparatively few. Certainly where mosses grow so high that one 
sinks in their exquisite carpet nearly to the knees, and where ferns grow till 
they resemble palm leaves in size, there must be encouragement for many sorts 
of useful vegetation. 




(84) 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 85 

Miss Curtis appeared to have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. She had 
a collection of books on Alaska which was truly formidable, and which she 
insisted on reading. Whenever we stopped at a landing, she made it a point to 
make the most systematic inquiries about the place, and as she enthusiastically 
related to me all of her most recently acquired knowledge, I was saved the 
trouble of putting myself out to any great extent in the accumulation of facts. 

We saw the Pacific again at Dixon's entrance, and then entered Clarence 
Strait, which, with only a width of four miles, stretches ahead for over loo miles. 
Close on each side crowd the hills, and in the waters at their feet they lie mir- 
rored in translucent greenness. 

But to return to our journey, and follow its course. The boat has performed 
its brief duties at Fort Simpson, which is the first American port after the 
British possessions, and when Tt stops at Tongas Narrows to deliver or take 
•ireight from the Tongas Salmon-Packing Company, it makes its second halt. 
The stop here is apt to be in the night, and, ten to one, the passenger does 
not know that he has an opportunity of putting his foot on Alaskan soil. But 
after he has really entered Clarence Strait, the good boat will steam into Loring, 
■on Revilla Gigedo Island, some morning when a light mist is falling — at least, I 
fancy that the place must always look as it did when I saw it first. 

Miss Curtis stood on deck clothed from head to foot in rubber. 

"There are such advantages in being a man — or a mermaid," she said; "for 
then one can be more or less indifferent to the weather; as it is, I am bound to 
•suffer. A woman is not only uncomfortable when it rains — she would not mind 
that so much — but she is a guy as well." 

I and the "guy" went ashore together, by way of the long salmon-packing 
house, whose mysteries we made ourselves acquainted with. We had expected 
to experience some disgust; but we were agreeably surprised. The preparation 
of this familiar table luxury was as dainty as it could have been had it been 
prepared in a home kitchen. Nevertheless, there is something about seeing 
food in large quantities that is more or less disagreeable, and in the future we 
avoided the salmon-packing houses by common consent. 

Beyond, in a sort of semi-circle following the beach, ran the little Indian 
village. Leaving the others to roam among these odoriferous dwellings in 
-search of the treasured curios. Miss Curtis, two immature youths with long 
legs, and a charming and energetic young widow from Indiana, and myself, went 
in search of a waterfall whose noisy music, softened by intervening trees, came 
•drowsily to our ears. The sand of the beach hardly ceases before the hill begins 
to rise. We passed a little garden, keeping always to the pipe that led from the 
cannery, and which ran directly to the fall, and presently entered the wood. 

Suddenly the sun burst forth. The mist disappeared as if by the incanta- 
tion of a magician; and there before us, in the most exquisitely harmonized 
tints of green and olive and brown, arose the wood, seemingly up to the very 
skv. From the branches of the firs trailed long festoons of moss, sometimes 



86 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

deep in tint as the trees themselves, and again shading through nne gradations 
of color till it shone yellow as a sunflower. Underneath was a dank carpet of 
luxuriance. The mosses and the ferns, tangled in bewitching intricacy, rose half 
to our knees, and bright berries of scarlet and crimson punctuated the green- 
ness with points of vivid color. 

"A Southern forest could not be more luxurious!" cried Miss Curtis, as she 
paused, panting'from her exertions, for the path, though not difficult, as mount- 
ain paths go, is far from easy. One climbs the slippery bulk of a fallen log 
only to sink on the farther side into a mass of semi-peat made by the decaying 
mosses and ferns of centuries; then up the boggy hill, plunges into deep- 
tangled brush, or is obliged to swing by main force around the bulk of a tree, 
whose outreaching roots make a strong barrier to progress. 

"But," as Miss Curtis put it, " the difficulties make it more enjoyable. I 
really felt afraid, when I saw how exceedingly comfortable my journey was 
likely to be, that I should not have even the slightest feeling of adventure in 
my Alaskan trip. I am positively grateful for the opportunity to show my metal 
as a traveler, and to prove to myself that I am not a mere dining-car tourist. 
It has always been a matter of regret to me that I was not a Columbus; but 
even if I were a man, I am afraid I should be embarrassed by the fact that 
there are no more worlds to discover." 

This might have been a new world, however, for, though many hundred 
had no doubt climbed, as we did, up this tangled slope, they had left few traces 
of their presence, and we seemed to be moving in a forest previously unvisited 
by man. Louder and louder grew the roar of the fall. There had recently 
been a succession of heavy rains, and the stream had been swollen to a great 
size. So, as we emerged from the thicket, and the tumbling mass of amber 
water met our eyes, a cry of admiration burst from us — it was so much more 
beautiful than anything we had anticipated. The surface of the rock over which 
it plunged was broken with ledges and crossed with broken tree-trunks, so 
that the swift body of water was whirled from it remorselessly, and, breaking 
into a shower of yellow-tinted spray, flung itself angrily into the basin below, 
where it seethed for a while, and then rushed on again between its glistening 
mosses. Above the whole still rose the hill, draped to the very tops of the 
ambitious trees with tender greens, which the sunlight revealed in all their sur- 
prising and varied loveliness. 

I can not tell why it is that people always do absurd things in Alaska — and 
I do not mean to insinuate that the residents do; but it is certain that the 
tourists lose for a time that stern conventionality which binds them most of the 
years of their life. In this picturesque wild, distinguished members of the 
bench, senators, ministers, editors, artists, all of whom at home Serve, no doubt, 
as models of discreet conduct, here become boys, and frolic in a manner that 
must be as surprising to themselves when they pause to contemplate it, as it is- 
to the witnesses; and the absolute relaxation that can be enjoyed is one of the:: 



A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 87 

things that recommend this journey particularly to the man of exhausted brain. 
There were no less than four gentlemen of wide public affairs onboard with us^ 
all of whom were suffering from nervous prostration as the result of overwork. 
At the close of the trip they owned to a decided improvement; I think they 
would not have considered that they were perjuring themselves if they had said 
that they were cured. The abuses and fatigues of years, however, can not be 
made up for in one month's rest. But, undoubtedly, the ability to get away from 
telegraph messages, from newspapers, from the reach of all business corre- 
spondence, and the reports of all the happenings of this fevered age, is a 
pleasure that few can appreciate the peace of till they have experienced it. 
It seems like taking one month from the relentless passage of time, to grow 
young in. 

But I started out to say that we extracted more enjoyment from our walks 
and explorations than can be conveyed by any description of our journey. If 
we felt like using our lungs, we had actually lief to do so, and for some of us 
who lived in cities the experiment was a novel one. We all wore rubber boots, 
regardless of sex, and the fording of streams, the wading in the surf, the climb- 
ing of mountains, and the leaping of logs filled us with no dismay. 

Fatigued, but not exhausted, by the exploits at the fall, we rowed, in the late 
afternoon, through a narrow inlet to. where a silver lake lies among the mount- 
ains, like a pearl in a cluster of emeralds. The shores are wild and luxuriant, 
and the very " cave where echo lies " seems to be here. 

Fort Wrangell was our next stopping-place. This was once the port for the 
Cassiar mines, and, as such, a place of importance. But now it is a small 
trading-post with a few Americans living among the Indians. Stikine River 
Indians occupy the huts that circle around the beautiful sweep of beach. We 
went out on shore as soon as the gang-plank was swung out. The town was 
more representative than the one we had previously visited. It is noted for a 
number of remarkable totem-poles and old Indian graves. The totem-pole, as 
is now generally known, is a genealogical chronicle, represented by carvings. 
The races having tribal division, named after the raven, the whale, the frog, the 
eagle, and, possibly, the blackfish, signify the marriages by the succession of 
figures carved on these poles. It would be interesting to devote a short chapter 
to the habits of the Indians, and particularly upon their tribal relations and 
government, as well as their not unpoetic superstitions and traditions, did space 
permit. But so many readable volumes have recently been written about the 
Alaskans, that, without doubt, most tourists start upon their journey with some 
acquaintance with the subject. At Fort Wrangell we visited these totem-poles, 
following a road past the main part of the town to a sequestered little penin- 
sula, where a second group rewarded our exertions. I remember, too, that I 
spurred Miss Curtis on to a tour of investigation, and going back of the houses 
near which these totems stand, came upon a remarkable scene. An Indian hut, 
somewhat more moss-covered than the others, overlooked the bay, and about 



88 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

the door clustered a group of those sharp-featured and contemptible coyote 
dogs, whose cowardly natures irritate a lover of " Christian dogs," as we referred 
to those of the States. In the dim light of waning day the interior of the hut 
was visible to us by the blaze of the fire which was built on the ground in the 
center of the house, and around which the family were clustered." The house 
was terraced, or erected in platforms; that is, after climbing several steps to 
gain entrance to the door, one is obliged to descend two or three platforms 
which run around the entire house, to reach the ground. The family utilize 
these platforms for beds, tables, seats, store-houses, and display-shelves. Indeed, 
this style of architecture seems so well suited to their needs that I could not 
help admiring it. In the place of honor, exactly opposite the door, sat the head 
of the house. Near him sat his wife, his sons and his daughters. With their 
backs to the door were two more dejected mortals, whom we took for slaves, 
and all about among the group were cats of formidable size and the most socia- 
ble habits. It was the first time that we had chanced upon an Indian family 
in the full enjoyment of their domestic happiness, and the picture made a strong 
impression. The house was soaked with moisture, being very old and moss- 
covered. The dogs kept up a mournful and wolfish howling, and the cats 
blinked solemnly at those silent and old-faced children. 

Filled with a sudden appetite for the curious, we retraced our steps for a 
short way, and then picked our way across a narrow and quaking bridge to a 
lonely island surrounded by tide-lands. Here stands the house of the chief, 
who is the proud possessor of many of the best pieces of work ever done by his 
tribe. Here are more totems, both inside and outside, and there is besides 
a most amazing conglomeration of Catholic emblems, heathen carvings, Chinese 
chests, Russian furniture, Indian blankets, and American clothes, that I ever saw. 

We delayed our visit to the old stockade and block-house and the Govern- 
ment buildings till morning. The little plaza in front of them was green and 
inviting. The port-holes, yawning through the walls of the old fort buildings, 
looked innocent enough under the light of existing circumstances, and it took 
all of our imagination to summon up pictures of desperate struggles with the 
Indians, such as took place here in other days. But the morning was not far 
advanced when we were on our way. Never shall I forget through what tor- 
tuous narrows we then made our way; nor how the gulls wheeled and wheeled 
about us with their deafening din; nor how the red and black buoys marked 
the course of the ship. The Jumbo Mountains towered in the distance, and at 
a certain turn we came in sight of the Fairweather range. How shall I tell 
how beautiful those peaks of snow looked, poised against the sky with the 
■changeful loveliness of clouds? Mount Fairweather, 13,500 feet; Mount 
Crillon, 15,900 feet; Mount La Perouse, 11,300 feet; Mount Lituya, 10,000 feet, 
shine together, far, far to the north. We were especially fortunate in being able 
to see them at this distance, so we were told; but for us the day was perfect. 
To be sure, the wind blew cold; but Miss Curtis sat wrapped, with the dear 



A JOURNEY IHROUOH WONDERLAND, 89 

litlle widow from Indiana, in voluminous wraps, on the forecastle, and I, with 
my legs in a coil of rope and my shoulders covered with a series of capes, 
kept safe from danger of chill. The scene changed every moment, and we 
must have been much colder than we were to have sacrificed any of its beauties. 

If geographical terms are to be continued, it may be mentioned that after 
going westward to the southern entrance of Wrangell Strait, the ship goes 
northward into Dry Strait, on the right of which is the Patterson glacier. Dim 
and distant does it look, however, and one receives no hint from this view of 
' the peculiar and transcendent splendor of the glaciers when seen at close 
range. The serpentine streams of ice crawling down the mountain-sides 
to the ocean became more frequent as we still sailed to the north, and we 
are not surprised now to encounter cakes of floating ice. Kupreanoff Island, 
Frederick Sound, and Stephen's Passage passed, we hastened on till we reached 
Taku Inlet. It is not the habit of the vessels to put ni here on every voyage, 
but on this particular occasion, a United States Survey ship wanting coal, 
anchor was weighed at the little settlement. The place would not have lingered 
in my memory, but for a peculiar circumstance. So perfect was the night — 
moonlight, with pale stars — that I could 'not persuade myself to go to bed, but 
:sat on the upper deck, thinking of — well, of many things. I was lying back on 
the tightly drawn canvas that covers one of the small boats, when I was elec- 
trified by seeing an arm of crimson radiance dart into the sky to the very 
zenith, while after it came rolling, as from an invisible horn, a liquid illumina- 
tion, white and shimmering. A second later, the whole northern sky was 
alight with weird, green shadows, with those wavering pennons of red and 
those ghostly wings of white. It was the aurora borealis. I had supposed 
that I had witnessed this phenomenon many times in my life, but I knew now 
that what I had previously seen was but the faintest shadow of the reality. 
Faster and faster played this wild dance of prismatic gleams, reaching down 
into the atmosphere till it seemed to play among the rigging of the ship, and 
filled me with something like fear. It was so capricious, so mystical, that I 
feared it would wrap me round and envelop me m some strange enchantment. 
My growing terror was increased by the sight, at the far end of the deck, of a 
white figure, that seemed to flutter and hover in the very midst of this bewitch- 
ment. This figure at last glided toward me, and I saw that it was Miss Curtis, 
wrapped in a huge eider-down mantle. She had a sort of uncanny look in her 
■eyes, and I can not say that my awe was lessened by finding that she was no 
^host. Seating herself on the edge of one of the small boats, and throwing 
back her head, so as not to lose one transformation of this impressive spec- 
tacle, she began reciting one of Longfellow's adaptations of the Icelandic 
skaulds. This finished, we " fell on silence ' till slowly the splendor in the sky 
vanished and left the quiet and familiar moon; then, without a "good-night," 
she glided off again, and left me to a disturbed solitude. 

The next day, I could not find even a moment's opportunity of seeing this 
young lady, who seemed to have caught an erratic spirit from the wild lumin- 
osity in which she had bathed herself the night before. She cultivated old 
gentlemen, and invalid ladies, and the Indians in the forecastle — anyone but 
me. Not till we reached Juneau did I again have an opportunity of speaking 
more than a sentence with her. 

Juneau lies on the beach at the foot of precipitous hills. Its population is 
not "less than 1,500, the greater part of which is native. However, there are 
manv American men here, interested in the mines, and there is that famous 




(90) 



A JOURNEY THROUCJH \Vl )N1)KRLAM). 91 

character, Dick Willoughby. Dick Willoughby is the typical pioneer; 
dressed in blue-jeans, with the swagger of the mountaineer and the arm of a 
boatman, he can give more information, in his not irreproachable English, con- 
cerning Alaska, than a dozen other men. He is intrepid, strong in spite of 
advancing years, the best of companions, and one of the most indefatigable of 
explorers. That he is imaginative, some persons believe who have not seen 
the " Silent City," that famous mirage which he claims to have discovered on the 
Muir Glacier; but, certain it is, that every recurring midsummer season for 
many years Mr. Willoughby has gone upon a long and mysterious pilgrimage, 
which he now says has always been to the site of the city in the air. At pres- 
ent, scientists disclaim the possibility of the existence of such a mirage; but 
the scientists have so often been wrong in their premises, and false in their con- 
clusions, that it will be as well to delay judgment in this matter till later investi- 
gations have conclusively proved these interesting tales to be false. 

At Juneau, by the courtesy of the owners of the Gold Mountain mine, I 
was taken to the terminus of the road constructed through the Silver Bow 
Basin — the only road of any length in Alaska. The canon was very like Colo- 
rado in many of its features, so I was informed by a gentleman from that State. 
It was certainly a proud picture, with its rugged sides, its snow-covered barri- 
cades at the far end; its flashing rivers, and dells where the ferns and brushes- 
grow. There are some pleasant homes at Juneau, and a few shops which would 
ibe no disgrace to a town in the States; but this last is true of all of the trading- 
posts. Fort Wrangell having several excellent stores. Here, too, are some 
good curio stores ; but I was assured by the ladies that, though one could 
frequently find some desirable bit of Hydah carving or silverwork in the 
shops, quite as often the most desirable curiosities were got from the Indian 
houses. One native silversmith at Fort Wrangell met with especial recom- 
mendation for the characteristic work he did, while the rattles, the totems, 
the beads, fish-hooks, and furs of Koehler & James, at Juneau, were said to 
be worthy of particular examination. Juneau is perhaps the best place to buy 
furs, there being several good dressers of furs at that place, and the country 
roundabout being favorable for the trapping of many of the best fur-bearing- 
animals. Juneau has two weekly papers, which the tourist reads with interest, 
and which" keep the residents fairly well informed of the affairs of the Terri- 
tory, especially among the mines. 

We made our way northward through the Lynn Canal. On the sides of the 
barren mountains gleam the glaciers. Vegetation almost ceases. Eagle Glacier 
is seen after passing Point Retreat, and the mighty Davidson is passed soon 
after. Then come the inlets of the Chilkat and Chilkoot, barren and grim, with 
the wind blowing cold from fields of ice, and nineteen cataracts from these 
frozen stretches flowing fiercely into the sea. Pyramid Harbor is the point at 
which the vessel stops longest in these inlets. It takes its name from a 
symmetrical rock which rises in solitary desolateness in the midst of the ever- 
altering tides. Is is worth while to go ashore here and walk for a mile or two. 
One will not arrive anywhere in particular; but the tourist will see before him 
a mountain of glittering ice that increases in beauty as he keeps on his way. 
I returned to the ship to find everything ready for departure. 

I stood by the bulwarks, deep in thought, when Miss Curtis passed— and 
spoke. 

"You look as if you had just made up your mind to sacrifice yourself for 
the good of mankind," she said, archly. 



92 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND. 

" I have made up my mind," I said, "that if a man wants to be happy, he 
can not do better than to live here among these ingenuous savages. Here, 
with wastes of ice and snow, these solemn rocks and terrible rivers surrounding 
one, it might be possible to cultivate a high and serious train of thought. I am 
wondering if it is worth while to return to civilization. There, one's best 
motives are misconstrued; one is constantly put to it to get bread to keep life 
in his body. Every man is against his fellow, and the end of all is disaster 
— death — forgetfulness." 

" Yes," replied Miss Curtis, wrapping and rewrapping a scarf about her 
tieck, with a graceful twining of her arms, " I should thmk you might enjoy 
staying here and assisting in the manufacture of those Chilkat blankets, one 
of which I have just purchased for sixty good dollars, and which I expect to 
•decorate the side of my sitting-room with, when I can get the smell out of it." 

" I do not admire the famous Chilkat blankets," I said, testily, "and I won- 
der how it is that you always refuse to understand and respond to my moods, 
when you find it so easy to sympathize with others." 

There was no reply to this, and I went on: 

" To-morrow we shall be at the Muir Glacier, and I think of leaving the 
-vessel, hiring a canoe of natives with whom I have already spoken at Chilkat, 
and exploring the icy fastnesses of that region." 

" If you really want to commit suicide," said the lady, angrily, "why not do 
it in some quicker way?" 

" I wish to be alone," I replied, still preserving what I supposed to be a 
■dignified and impressive demeanor; "and surely there I shall be so; my fate 
will trouble no one." 

" I thought you said you were going to become one of the devoted citizens 
of .Tacoma?" interposed my saucy girl. 

"Why should I stay where I am not wanted?" I burst forth. 

" I am sure the legal profession needs you," was the answer I got. 

I drew myself up haughtily. 

"I shall leave you at the glacier," I said. I expected that this would touch 
a woman, but it only had the effect of producing a ribald peal of laughter. 

" Pardon me," I said, " I am glad you can laugh, but I do not feel called 
on to furnish you any more amusement." I lifted my hat. I started to walk 
.away. The laughing stopped. 

"I suppose you have no objection to a companion on the glacier," said a 
very gentle voice. I returned and looked at the speaker. She was winding and 
unwinding that scarf again. 

" You have treated me shamefully the last few days," I cried, taking no 
notice of her last remark. There was no answer. 

" Now, I suppose," I went on, " you wish to make a fool of me. You are 
going to lead me on by remarks such as you just made to heights of hope from 
which you will suddenly dash me." 

" Oh, very well," cried she, " if you wish to misunderstand me. I suppose 
you like to be miserable — that is, if you really are miserable. Perhaps you are 
only pretending." 

" Do not be angry," I cried; " you can guy me all you like, but do not avoid 
me as you have been doing. If I really went on the glacier, would you go?" 

" I think I might," she said, laughingly. Then she pretended that someone 
was calling from the after cabin, and started to hasten toward it. 

" But if I stay in Tacoma — which, I must say, is the town of my heart's 
election — may I feel that you take an interest in my success?" 



.A JOURNEY THROLGH WONDERLAND. 93 

" Why certainly," she called, still hastening on. I caught at that voluminous 
scarf. 

" Let us have no more evasion," I pleiided. " I will stay and carve out my 
fortune there, if you will promise me that I shall have a home there." Some 
one was approaching. She feigned to be laughing. 

" Then come up and keep bachelor's hall with my brother," she said. 

" Not bachelor's hall," I objected. 

" Oh, very well; as you like," she replied. 

" Is it a promise?" I asked, hardly daring to believe she meant it. 

" It is a promise," she said suddenly, ceasing to laugh. Then a dozen 
people came along, and we fell to talking about the atmospheric effects. 

The next day — or rather in the light of the early northern morning — we 
entered Glacier Bay. First we sailed through quantities of drifting ice, the ship- 
now and then staggering from the concussions with it, and the Captain unable 
to conceal a certain nervousness. 

" This is the heaviest fall of ice from the glacier that I have seen in years," 
he confided to me. But the ship went on, slowly picking its way. I stood on 
the forecastle with my lady; both of us were wrapped from head to foot in our 
recently-purchased furs. The day was perfect, and the vision uninterrupted 
for miles. 

The sea was a brooding blue; the sky a blue of deeper tint. The mount- 
ains were wrapped in mists of blue, and the tremulous air seemed a liquid sap- 
phire diluted with some tender and ethereal radiance. The cakes of ice floating 
about the veering ship were white, with crevices of ultramarine. These groaned 
and swayed with the contesting tides, for the glacial stream combated with the 
rising waters of the incoming tide, and the perplexed bergs were the victims of 
the struggle. In the sky two copper-colored orbs burned through the luminous- 
ether, and so bright was the mock sun that it required a second and searching 
look to determine which was the real sun, and which its reflex. Thus, by the 
mystic light of two suns, the trembling vessel forced its way through the clus- 
tering bergs to where the engulfing blueness seemed to concentrate itself into 
an intensity deeper than any mid-summer sky, more radiant than my lady's 
eyes, more brilliant than any sapphire, more splendid than any tint of wave in 
sunlit depths. We stayed at the glacier for twelve hours. We climbed past its 
great moraine and looked into its scintillant crevasses. We learned of colors, 
the existence of which the imagination could not dream. But while the rest 
chatted and exclaimed, I and one little lady kept silent. It seemed but natural 
and right that such a scene of glory should emphasize our happiness. The roar 
of the falling ice, as it dropped into the protesting sea, was the orchestral 
accompaniment for life's melody. 

Southward next, through Chatham Strait, into the placid Peril Straits, which 
belie their name, in sight, in course of time, of the blasted crater of Edge- 
cumbe, and we enter the harbor of Sitka. Innumerable islands dot the bay; in 
the west rises the Mount of the Holy Cross, with its sacred sign of unsullied 
snow; and on the pier stand the groups of fantastically dressed Indians, the 
navy officers, and their wives, a delegation from the mission, and a few lads 
bearing the costume of the United States men-of-war. Green and smooth is 
the well-kept plaza or parade ground, and beyond it is the graceful Greek 
church, and the quaint Russian houses, with their whitewashed walls, and their 
gardens, while round the beach stretches the Indian village in picturesque 
irregularity. 

How to crowd all of our sight-seeing into twenty-four brief hours puzzled 



•^4 A JOURNEY THROUGH WONDERLAND.. 

US. We visited the stores, accumulated more curios, dined at the excellent inn 
kept by Mr. Milmore, and washed in the room where Lady Franklin slept, on 
her weary search. Grouse and venison, native cranberries, and delicious native- 
grown vegetables, made up a dinner that none of us are likely to forget, any 
more than we are the walk that preceded it, and which added materially to the 
appetites with which we astonished " Dazzle," the diminutive waiter' at the " Mil- 
more." This walk was to the last battle-ground of the Thlinkets, over roads 
of crushed stone, through a wonderful forest. Here the intermingling boughs 
made a canopy, and balsamic perfumes greeted the nostrils. The ferns and 
mosses carpeted the ground, and the thicket reached up to the heights above 
in almost impenetrable luxuriance. Indian River bubbled and swirled over its 
innumerable stones, sending its crystal current to mingle with the silver waters 
of the bay. Another road took us to the "big trees," where mighty cedars 
have grown from the stumps of decayed trees, producing a most peculiar effect. 
Sometimes we crossed rustic bridges, over whose slippery surface my lady 
needed assistance; sometimes we leaped from root to root amid dank paths of 
rotten fern; sometimes we stopped to admire the flow of the river, in which 
we could see the fish leaping. 

And after dinner we went to Baranoff Castle. The light lingers so late that 
we had no fear of the ghostly lady, who, murdered in ihe ball-room on her 
bridal night, still haunts these deserted halls to remind mortals of her tragic 
fate. So we climbed the rotting stairs to the old mansion, built of wood, on 
solid rock, which, when the site was an island, made a natural fortress which 
assailants might have had much difficulty in carrying. The red light flushed all 
the bay, and by it we saw by what allurements the great captain and statesman, 
Baranoff, was brought to make his settlement at this spot. 

The next day we visited the training school, receiving many courtesies 
from the missionaries, and the Greek church, which is a bit of a richer civiliza- 
tion dropped down into this severe atmosphere. Its pictures, vestments, jewels, 
and censors are in strongest contrast to the simple white missions farther along 
the shore, but they both represent an influence more similar in its results than 
the followers of either faith would be likely to admit. 

I wanted to journey to the head of Silver Bay, and see the Sarabinokoff 
Cataract; to climb the sides of Edgecumbe, and visit the deer-haunted fast- 
nesses of Vostovia; but, under the circumstances, I was willing to leave this 
interesting and historic city — for was not my lady with me? To be sure, the 
glimpse I had of one delightful interior of an old Russian house, and of the 
heirlooms that enriched it, made me long to stay in an atmosphere so full of 
reminiscences. But as I neared the steamer the half-hour before we lifted 
anchor, and its familiar decks hove in sight, I felt only a desire for a continua- 
tion of the journey through this land of mellow twilights, of eternal silence, 
and slumberous reaches of shadowy seas. 

Our journey home was broken by several stops. The days came to be treas- 
ured more and more as the time for leaving our good ship drew near. We 
had made friends on board with whom we were loth to part. And over these 
friendships was thrown a glamor of the unusual and the romantic which will 
forever make them distinct. Stronger, happier, more appreciative than ever 
before of home comforts, we returned to Tacoma. 

Our experience in these majestic channels, surrounded with a succession of 
inimitable scenes, was one not to be forgotten so long as memory holds power 
to summon at will the pleasures of the past. 

As for me — there is Tacoma, the city of destiny, and the lady of my love! 



Northe rn Pac ific R. R. 

Rates and Arrangements for the Tourist Season. 

MINNESOTA SUMMER RESORTS.— The Northern Pacific Railroad will sell 
Tound-trin excursion tickets from St. Paul or Minneapolis to Glenwood (Lake MinnewasKa) at 
$5 25; Battle Lake, fv-So; Per^us Falls, $7.50; Detroit Lake, $9.15; Mmnewaukan (Devils 
Lake) $1865- Winnipeg, $22.50. From Duluth or Superior to Battle Lake, $7.50; I'ergus 
Falls '$7.sorr)etroit Lake, $9.15; Minnewaukan, $18.65; Winnipeg, $22.50. From Ashland. 
WMs ' to Battle Lake, $9.00; F'ergus Falls, $9.00; Detroit Lake, $10.65; Minnewaukan, !?2o.i5; 
Winnipeg $22.50. Tickets on sale May 1st to September 30th, inclusive. Good going to 
Minnesota resofts one day (from Ashland two days), to Minnewaukan (Devil s Lake) and 
Winnioeo- two days from date of sale. Good to return on or before October 31st. 

YELLOWSTONE PARK RATES.— 'Ihe Northern Pacific Railroad, the only rail line 
to the Park, will sell round-trip excursion tickets from Ma\- 30th to September 28th (both dates 
inclusive) at the following rates: r c- r. 1 ai- r 

A $110.00 Book Ticket, including the following traveling expenses, from St. Paul, Minneapolis 
Duluth or Ashland on the east, and Portland or Tacoma on the west to and through the 1 ark 
and return to starting point, viz.: Railroad and stage transportation, Pullman sleeping car fares, 
meals on Northern Pacific dining cars and at Hotel Albemarle at Livingston (junction of Main 
Line and Park Branch), and board and lodging at the Park Association Hotels five and one- 

"^"""A^i^aoo Round-trip Ticket, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Duluth or Ashland to Livingston and 

""^^^^$12 50 Book Ticket, Livingston to Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and return, including rail 
and staoe transportation and one and one-quarter days' board at Mammoth Hot Springs. 

A $35 00 Book Ticket, Livingston to Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris, Lower and Lpper 
Geyser Basins and return, including rail and stage transportation, and four and one-quarter days 
board and lodging at the Association Hotels. . .,, ^ . at • t a t-.,,,„. 

\ $4000 Book Ticket, Livingston to Mammoth Hot Spnngs, Norris, Lower and Lpper 
Gevser Basins and Yellowstone Falls and Caiion and return, including rail and stage transporta- 
tion and five and one-quarter days' board and lodging at the Association Hotels. 

Limit and Conditions of Tickets.-The $110.00 Ticket will be on sale at eastern and 
western termini named. May 30th to September 27th, inclusive; by eastern lines May 2<^tho 
September 26th, limit 40 days; good going 30 days, returning ^° days but must be used in the 
PaVk before October 5th. Stop-overs within final hmit at or east of l^'l^'^Sfv TIUs Hotel 
Helena. Return portion of ticket must be signed and stamped at Mammoth Plot Springs Hote^ 
after which ticket must be presented on Main Line train for return passage within one day from 
such date. Stop-overs in Park granted at pleasure of holder within final limit of ticket. 

Limit of $50.00 Ticket and stop-over privileges same as above, return portion of ticket to be 
stamped and signed at Livingston ticket office. , 

Coupons in Book Tickets may be used in Park without regard to items or localities specified 

°° The $^12^ 50, $35 .00, and $40.00 Tickets, on sale at Livingston and eastern and western termini 
between dates firS named above, are good if used in the Park any time between June 1st and 
October 1st both dates inclusive, and do not require identification of purchaser. ,,,,,,„ 

IMPROVED HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS.-A new and commodious hotel at the 
Grand Canon, with accommodations for 300 guests, will be opened to the public June 1st, thus 
enabling tourists to reman at this, the chief point of interest in the Park, as long as may suit 

"^'a'dTilT STAGE TlNE.-The Transportation Company will run a daily line of stages 
durine the e;,tirc sef;^r'in both directions, between the following points. /.. ^Cinnabar, the 

°h."rriagei° which they are making the trip detained, xn extra charge «,11 be made. For „me 
"'hotIl ^t'yeIlOWSTOn£'lAKE.-A small hotel, with capacity to accommo. 

-a distance of about 100 miles. Fare for round trip, $500. 



MONTANA AND EASTERN WASHINGTON POINTS.— The Northern Pacific 
Railroad sells daily round-trip excursion tickets to Bozeman at $52.00; Helena and Butte, $56.00;. 
Missoula, $62.50; and Spokane Falls at $70.00. 

These tickets will be of iron-clad signature form; will require identification of purchaser at 
return starting point, and will be limited to 90 days, good going 30 days and returning 30 days. 
Stop-overs granted at anj' point within limits stated. 

To Springdale (Hunter's Hot Springs), Mont., and return, $50.00; on sale daily; good 40 days 
— going limit 30 days, return limit lo days. 

NORTH PACIFIC COAST EXCURSIONS.— An fSooo Round trip Individual 
E.xcursion Ticket, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Duluth or Ashland to Tacoma, Portland, Seattle or 
Victoria, is on sale daily at points first named and by eastern lines. 

Tacoma, Seattle, Victoria or Portland tickets at above rates will be issticd, going via Cascade 
Division, returning via Columbia River Line, or vice versa; Portland tickets via either Cascade Di- 
vision or Columbia River, returning via Union Pacific to either Omaha or Kansas City, and 
Victoria tickets good to return via Canadian Pacific to either Winnipeg, Ft. Arthur, St. Paul or 
Minneapolis. 

CONDITIONS. — Above tickets limited to si.x months from date of sale; good going trip 
60 davs to any one of North Pacific Coast termini named, returning any time within final limit. 

ALASKA EXCURSIONS. — An e.xcursion ticket will be sold from eastern termini named 
to Sitka, Alaska, at $175.00, which rate includes meals and berths on the steamer. Tickets on sale 
May 1st to September 30th. Limit, six months. Going'to Tacoma, 60 days, returning within final 
limit, holder to leave Sitka on or before October 31st. Usual stop-over privileges granted. 
Steamer accommodations can be secured in advance by application to any of the agents named 
below. Diagrams of steamers at office of General Passenger Agent at St. Paul. 

CALIFORNIA EXCURSION RATES.— The Northern Pacific Railroad will sell 
round- trip excursion tickets from St. Paul, Minneapolis, Duluth or Ashland, via Cascade Division 
or (Jolumbia River and Portland, and either the Shasta route or the ocean to San Francisco, 
returning same route, or by southern lines to Oraaha, Kansas City, Mineola, or Houston at 
$95.00; to New Orleans and St. Louis at $101.00; to St. Paul or Minneapolis via Missouri River, 
$105.00. Tickets via ocean include meals and berths on steamer. 

At the eastern termini of the southern transcontinental lines, excursion tickets will he sold, or 
orders exchanged, for tickets to San fVancisco, returning via either the Shasta route, the all-rail 
line to Portland, or the ocean and the Northern Pacific to St. Paul, Minneapolis, Duluth or Ash- 
land, at rate $15.00 higher than the current excursion rate in effect between Missouri River 
points, Mineola or Houston and San Francisco. The steamship coupon includes first-class cabin 
passage and meals between San Francisco and Portland. 

Return coupons reading from Missouri River points to Chicago or St. Louis will be honored 
from St. Paul or Minneapolis, either free, or with a small additional charge, according to the route. 

Tliese excursion tickets allow six months' time for the round trip; 60 days allowed for west- 
bound trip up to first Pacific Coast common point; return any time within final limit. 



General 

and Special 

Agents. 



/ A. D. CHARLTON, Assistant General Passenger Agent, 121 First St., Portland. Ore. 
' JAMES C. POND, Assistant General Ticket Agent, St. Paul, Minn. 

B. N. AUSTIN, Assistant General Passenger Agent, St. Paul, Minn 

J. Li. HARRIS, New England Agent, 306 "Washington Street, Boston, Mass. 

E. R. ■WADSWORTH, General Agent, 210 South Clark Street, Chicago, 111. 

GEO. R. FITCH, General Eastern Agent, 319 Broadway, New York City, N. Y. 

0. B. KINNAN, Eastern Passenger Agent, 319 Broadway, New York City, N. Y. 

A. D. EDGAR, Genex-al Agent, corner Main and Grand Streets, Helena, Mont. 

JAMES McCAIG, General Agent, 354 Main Street, Buttf, Mont. 

A. "W HARTMAN, General Agent, Duluth, Minn. 

H. SWINFORD, General Agent, 457 Main Street, "Winnipeg, Manitoba. 

A. ROEDELiHEIMER, General Agent, corner High and Chestnut Streets, Columbus, O. 

G. G. CHANDLER, General Agent, 621 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma, "Wash. 



Traveling 

Passenger 

Agents. 



A. J. QXTIN, 306 "Washington Street, Boston, Mass. 

J. H. ROGERS, JR., 47 South Third Street, Philadelphia. Penn. 

L. L. BILLINGSLEA, 47 South Thud Street, Philadelphia, Penn. 

GEO D. TELLER, 44 Exchange Street, Buffalo, N. Y 

D. "W. JANOWITZ, Room 1, Jackson Place, IndianapoUs, Ind. 

A. A JACK, 161 Jefferson Avenue, Detroit, Mich. 

T. L. SHORTELL, 104 North Fourth Street, St. Louis, Mo. 

S. H. MILLS, 132 "Vine Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

T. S. PATTY, 24 "West Ninth Street, Chattanooga, Tenn. 

JOHN N. ROBINSON, 392 Broadway, Milwaukee, "Wis. 

OSCAR "VANDERBILT, 402 Court Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa. 

"W. F SHER"WIN, Elmira, N. Y. 

THOS. HENRY, 154 St James Street, Montreal, Canada. 

THOS. RIDGEDALE, 64 Bay Street. Toronto, Ont. 

T. D. CAMPBELL, 144 Superior Street, Cleveland, Ohio. 

C. G. LEMMON, Friedrich's Hotel, Peoria, 111. 

FRANK O'NEILL, 121 First Street, Portland. Ore. 

"W. N MEARS, 621 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma. "Wash. 

T. K. STATELER, 618 Market Street, San Francisco, Cal. 

"W. H. "WHITAKER, St. Paul, Minn 



^ 



^\^ 



M. HANNAFORD, 

Traffic Mapager, 



ST. PAUL, MINN. 



GHAS. S. FEE, 

General Passenger and Ticket Agent, 







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